


Code of Silence

by tb_ll57



Series: Code [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Dark(ish) characters, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Murder Mystery, Past Relationship(s), Post-Endless Waltz, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Undecided Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 11:55:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 72,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10718868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: The moon in the window was bright, bright enough anyway. It lit a braid as it swung about, long hands as they raised defensively. Lit the body stretched out on the floor, and gleamed in the spatter of blood on the wall.“It’s not what it looks like,” Duo Maxwell said.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic well over a decade ago with my writing partner of the time, Marsh. Obviously in that amount of time I've had some second, third, and occasionally fourth or fifth changes of mind, and I've fiddled with the writing to better it where possible, without changing the plot. the version posted here may therefore be different from versions posted at other archives, as this represents the most updated copy.
> 
> The Code of Silence arc was always meant to span this fic, a prequel, and a sequel. The only one ever finished was this fic. Marsh passed away in 2011 quite suddenly, and though I've made attempts to keep posting, there was a lot unfinished at the time of her death, and the 'maybe someday' has become more wish than goal. Still... maybe someday.
> 
> Code of Silence is a hard one to properly summarise. It's a lot about relationships, nominally about how people can go wrong even when they're sure of their footing, about how your morals and your character can stagnate when you're not properly watching yourself. It's also about deciding what you really do have to be willing to fight for, deciding who you really want to be and who you want at your side while you're becoming that better version of yourself. I've been told it's pretty angsty, although I look at it less as angst and more as the hard work involved in all that growing up, and earning your happy ending.

It was already dark when they paid the evening manager to tell them which room. It was pitch black as they crept silently up the stairs, badges clipped to their belts and guns coming out, loaded and unlocked, pointed low in their hands. A burnt-out bulb hovered over their heads as they slipped to the end of the dingy hall that smelt of cigarettes and worse. In hand-signals they charted their path, planned their entry. With the heel of his boot to the brittle wood, Heero kicked open the door, and Wufei at his back leveled his weapon and shouted, “Preventers! On the floor now!”

The moon in the window was bright, bright enough anyway. It lit a braid as it swung about, long hands as they raised defensively. Lit the body stretched out on the floor, and gleamed in the spatter of blood on the wall.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Duo Maxwell said.

 

**

 

The call woke him up well after midnight.

 _"I need you,"_ Duo said.

Trowa was a professional free-lancer. He did things– well, pretty much whatever he felt like. Wherever he felt like it. And he earned a lot of money doing it. Why wouldn’t Duo call him? Except that Duo was a Preventer, decorated and law-abiding, two things Trowa was not, and a damned decent detective himself. Maybe the question was why _would_ Duo call him?

Well, there’d been the sleeping together. But Trowa was fairly certain he was not the only person on that list.

Except that the other person most likely to say yes was Heero, and Heero had been the arresting officer. There were ironies at work. Trowa didn’t like irony much– he had no trouble recognising it, but appreciation was lacking.

I need you.

Trowa found that cumbersome.

Duo glared at him through the screen. _"You know I wouldn't say that unless it was true,"_ he added. _"And not for the sake of your stupid ass, either."_

The call was lengthy, though it didn’t really need to be. Trowa agreed right away. But Duo didn’t seem to want to hang up, and since he was in jail, Trowa made the appropriate assumption and let Duo run out his clock in the last privacy he was going to get. It might have been more comforting if Trowa knew how to, well, be comforting.

But he didn’t, and somehow he ended out saying, "It failed because you're too needy and I'm an asshole."

Yeah.

 _"I agree with the asshole part."_ Said drily, in that fine-martini voice Duo had, Stolichnaya vodka. And eyes roaming, unsettled, and it was tempting to think things like he looks fifteen again or I used to fuck his lights out, asshole is right. They weren’t true, so Trowa exerted himself not to.

Eyes landed like tiny bird-feet clutching a wire, on him, on his face. _"It's not needy to want some expression of affection after two years, Tro."_

Trowa licked his lips before he answered, but only because they were dry. "We fucked," he said.

_"Exclusively. For two years. Some might call that a relationship."_

"I did call that a relationship. I'll refer you back to the too-needy statement."

Duo sighed deeply. But maybe it was only a play, a show, because his hands were still, and Duo was many things, but still had never been one of them.

“Okay,” Trowa said.

 

**

 

“CSI has a preliminary ballistics report,” Wufei said, punching off his phone line. “One bullet ricocheted and ended out in the couch. The other killed our victim. They’ll retrieve it during autopsy and get back to us on what kind of gun we’re looking for.”

Heero stared down at the pictures he was slowly clipping into his new case file. “Rene Vasquez,” he said. “Everyone wanted this guy. Locals, Interpol, ESA narcos. At least seven murders, drugs, child trafficking.”

Wufei straightened his tie as he stood. “Apparently somebody got him,” he said. Heero looked up, not sure if that was sarcasm. It was always hard to tell with Wufei. Wufei met his eyes as he unrolled his sleeves and buttoned the cuffs. “Finally,” he added.

Heero closed his file and stood. “Let’s get started.”

Duo sat in the interrogation room exactly as he had been left, cradling an empty styrofoam cup between hands now decorated with steel cuffs. Wufei stepped into a corner away from the two-way mirror where their supervisor and a forensic psychologist would be watching. Heero tossed his file to the table between himself and Duo, and felt about in his pocket for a keyring. He picked up Duo’s wrist, and unlocked the cuffs. "We don't need these, do we?" he asked.

Duo looked tired, strained. His voice was thin. "Thanks.”

Heero retrieved a water bottle from a cooler in the corner near Wufei, and handed it to Duo as he sat in the only other chair. “Unless you want more coffee?”

"Why don't you just order him a pizza, too," Wufei snapped.

Duo’s eyes skipped between them. “Are we really going to do this?"

"Do what, Maxwell?” Wufei countered. “File charges?"

"I'm a good Preventer. It'll go on my record and my rep will be shot,” Duo said forcefully. He ripped off the cap of the water and dropped it to the table. “Things like this ruin careers."

Heero answered before Wufei could. “We're aware of that, Duo." He touched the folder. “You have to admit, we walked into something pretty incriminating."

"Ballistics will back me up," Duo said.

"We'll get to that. Why don't you start with what you were doing?"

Duo sipped from his water. He was gazing at his hands now, rubbing his thumb against his other fingers. "Following an instinct."

Heero waited. "Go on," he said finally.

Duo exhaled heavily and leant back in his chair. "You know I have contacts in the neighbourhood. One of them told me there was a big shipment of chiva floating around. It made sense it was tied to Vasquez; he’s the Big Boy in the barrio. He’s Almighty Latin King Nation officially, but he’s got his hands in everything. We’ve been watching him in Narcotics for twelve years, and he’s been operating for at least fifteen.”

"Why didn't you call for back-up? Why isn't there some record?"

"I was running silent.” Duo tilted the bottle toward him. “As I'm sure you were."

Wufei’s voice was a grumble, but it was still clearly audible. "Running dirty."

Heero glared at his partner. “That's not necessary, Chang." But Duo ignored it anyway. Heero rubbed damp hands over his trousers. "So you went where your contact said, expecting to find what?"

"Expecting a deal going down,” Duo said. “The place was open. Vasquez was dead as fuck and there was blood everywhere. Several pints– I figure at least one other body, but they took it with them, whoever killed him. And no heroin, so we can guess motive."

He wasn't sure he bought it. "Why were you there alone?"

"Because I was. We don’t do partners in Narc."

"This is ridiculous,” Wufei interrupted. “Just book him. He's hiding things."

Heero turned to stare fiercely at the other man. "You can leave this interrogation any time, Chang," he said flatly. He waited until Wufei looked away, trying to regain his own calm. It was difficult. Duo was hiding things, and his answers, though delivered with the confidence of truth, gave away nothing they didn’t already know. Duo had drunk half his water. He met Heero’s gaze, but he just wasn’t acting normal. Too– breathing just a little too fast, blinking not quite often enough.

He thought he had it under control, but he heard his frustration when he spoke again. "You know– you've always known that your refusal to follow procedure would get you into trouble."

"Not following procedure is not the same thing as being guilty of murder,” Duo retorted. “It’s not even the same thing as incompetence."

He hated that he had to ask. He hated that he wasn’t sure. He wanted to just know, one way or other. But the one thing he did know was that Duo would not lie to him when he answered the question. He laid his hand flat on the table, sucking up the cool feel of the metal surface.

"Did you do it, Duo?" he asked softly.

Duo’s eyes did not flinch away. "No."

Heero swallowed drily as relief flooded him. "Okay,” he said. His hand clenched, and he straightened consciously, tugging the folder to him. “Then we'll help you." He pulled a pen from his coat pocket, and smiled at his friend as he opened the folder to a blank sheet for notes. "When did you last discharge your weapon?" he asked, moving along brusquely.

Duo was hesitating, though. "I was at the range today for mid-year testing."

Shit. Heero glanced at Duo’s hands. "Tell me you were wearing gloves."

"Who wears gloves at the range?" Duo slammed his bottle to the table, his tension boiling over into anger. "I wasn't expecting to be accused of murder tonight!"

"Where's your head, then?” Heero demanded. “You're not an independent op, you're a Preventer. We have procedures and rules for a reason. I can't help you if you don't–" The room seemed to narrow suddenly. “You're covering for someone."

Duo’s code name was Dodger. Heero saw the instinct rise immediately– but Duo was too tired, too wired. He hesitated too long searching for the right evasion. Heero felt a sinking feeling take over his stomach just as Duo began to talk.

"We both know they didn't hire us to follow rules, Heero,” he was saying, a forced noted of deprecation in his voice. “That's not who we are and that's not what makes us useful."

"Who, damn it."

They stared at each other. Duo’s eyes were wide and dilated. Heero almost thought he had him, felt the answer hovering in the air between them.

Then Duo glanced, eyes flying suddenly away, to Wufei.

He said, “I want a union rep."

“I think that’s a good idea,” Wufei answered soberly. “And an attorney.” He pushed away from the wall and walked to the door. “You’re going to need one."

 

**

 

Duo had bailed him out once. Flown all the way to Morocco to do it, arriving less than thirteen hours after Trowa’d contacted him. And by some miracle Duo had had pull with the local police– or maybe he’d just walked in, the way Duo could, bought them all coffee, grinning the whole time like he was the best friend they’d never had, the way Duo could. Duo spun him a tale later about a reciprocal intelligence agreement made during a hash smuggling bust, but Trowa knew he owed his present freedom to some fast talking and cool heads. And then Duo had taken him home– escorted, technically–

He’d had Duo in his house for about five minutes before they began to screw.

It was– God. They’d started against a wall and ended out on the floor, knocking elbows and cracking heads on coffee tables and for a while Duo had been in him, until he’d flipped them and then Duo was taking him in with this gut-wrenching groan. They’d both got off before they even got out of their trousers. Duo always looked best with sweat dripping off him and his hair going to frizz and his dick hanging out of his pants. They’d managed to make it to the bed for the second round, sucking each other until they were hard enough to fuck again. It was glorious, maybe the best it had ever been for them; all teeth and scrapes and fists. Almost as good as I-hate-you-sex, but in a way, it was.

He’d always hated it, just a little, that Duo made him want more than a fantastic fuck. And he never managed to remember how much a little was until he was on his knees plugging Duo so hard he couldn’t see.

Duo had never asked if he was guilty. Trowa was, of course. And even if he’d been caught, the blackmail on Ambassador Anastasios had still been good. Nothing was a total waste.

He did a little nosing about, calling in friends who had connections in law enforcement, trying to figure out what had gone down. Duo hadn’t explained, and the more Trowa learnt, the less he understood why Duo was sitting in the cage at Preventers Plaza. Duo was a good cop with a clean record. This whole situation rang wrong on every count. Duo was no vigilante, and neither Heero Yuy nor Chang Wufei were idiots. What the hell was going on?

Two months before they broke up, right before it got really bad, Duo had laughed at him for reading mouldy old poetry, and Trowa had laughed back, in his way. It was one of the best days he could remember, lying in bed with Duo, just drunk enough to be naked and stupid, Duo shouting shepherds and nymphs at the ceiling, and Trowa...

He was packing a spare set of clothes for Duo on the off chance they were needed, and making sure he had identification and a credit card ready when the phone rang. None of his informants had indicated they had anything else to give him, and Trowa didn’t get many casual calls, so he answered with some suspicion. They wouldn’t let Duo call again–

“Wufei,” he said.

 _"Yuy and I processed Duo in on a homicide an hour ago,”_ Wufei told him abruptly. He leant toward the vidscreen, absently patting the front pocket of his coat as if searching for something. _“He's going for arraignment as soon as a union rep arrives."_

Trowa blinked. “Are you informing me, or asking me to do something about it?”

Wufei didn’t find whatever he was looking for in his jacket. He dropped his eyes to the desk instead, but they were still, not roaming, Trowa noticed. He said, _“Please come.”_

Trowa nodded slowly. It wasn’t exactly unlike Wufei to go out of his way for people, especially when he cared for them. But that tone was new. Guilty. It couldn’t feel good to arrest a friend. “He already called me,” he admitted. “I was on my way when you rang.”

Somehow Wufei did not seem relieved. Perhaps it was as bad as Trowa’s informants had said, and it wasn’t just rumour. In that staccato voice, Wufei added, _“Whatever he tells you or whatever he doesn’t tell you, he’s clean.”_

“And... what aren’t you saying, Wufei?”

A dark little smile creased Wufei’s mouth and was gone a moment later. _“I don’t think I need to say anything more than we both already know.”_

Trowa jangled his car keys. “It’s a bit of a drive. I’ll be there in about two hours.”

 _“Good.”_ Wufei hung up without missing a beat, and Trowa was left looking at a blank screen.

 

**

 

Heero watched the door close behind his partner. He fidgeted with the cap of his pen, touching it to his lips thoughtfully. "Now tell me what's going on," he said to Duo.

Duo rubbed his neck wearily. "No," he sighed.

That stunned him. "What?"

"Either you believe I killed Vasquez or you don't. If you don't think I did it, cut me loose."

"I don't know what to think, Duo,” he retorted. “Aside from the fact that this could be exactly what you say– or it could be the most recent in a string of vigilante killings!"

"I have a right not to incriminate myself,” Duo said venomously. “And at the moment I have to place that at a higher priority than earning your trust all over again."

His fist connected with Duo’s face. Hard enough to make the chair skid and dance back a few inches. Duo caught himself on the table before he fell out, one arm half-raised in a defensive gesture. Long seconds passed before Heero realised that the loud noise he heard was his own laboured breathing.

"I'm your friend, stupid,” he said, and slowly sat. “Try to remember that."

Duo didn’t touch his cheek, already going red. But his head bowed.

Heero scrubbed his mouth, and retrieved the pen cap from the floor; he must have dropped it when he’d hit Duo. It stung, it genuinely stung that Duo thought Heero didn’t trust him. After all these years, after everything they had done together, Duo was at the top of a very short list of people that Heero did trust. And it made him furious that Duo didn’t acknowledge how much trouble he was in. Trusting his friends might be the only way out for him– trust was a two-way street, and Duo himself had said that to him more than once. "When you're ready to be straight with me, I'll still help you." He shook his head. "But there's not a damned thing I can do for you until you talk to me."

The door opened again. Wufei. Who stopped where he stood, looking between, wary of the obvious tension in the room. He followed Heero’s guilty silence to Duo’s bruising face. “What did I miss?" he asked sarcastically.

Duo looked up, at Wufei. He said, "We're waiting for that lawyer you called for me."

 

**

 

They were staring at each other. They’d done that, had their moments, mostly when the other wasn’t looking. It was strange, it felt almost improper, to both be looking at each other at the same time; they had no practice in getting it right so it didn’t look asinine or goopy– which it wasn’t. Certainly not for Trowa, and not Duo either, because Duo in need was Duo with claws extended and ready to kill or die trying.

Half a minute became a whole. He wanted to say things. He just didn’t really know how. What. When he spoke, it was stupid, but it filled the air at least. "So, you're in trouble. Okay."

"I need a way that... I need a way out that doesn't incriminate anyone else."

Duo was out of uniform. But in another kind, the clothes he wore when he carried his badge in his wallet in his back pocket like a condom. Black shirt, fitted, hot. Snug pants. He looked like a fashion model. He looked like someone who killed for a living. Trowa curled his fingers in the stiff rim of Duo's collar and somehow they tripped a path down along skin to snag in the first button. "Like who?" he pressed.

Duo didn't answer. He wasn’t the quiet one, but his silence was expert. It gave nothing away, absolutely nothing. It was an absence, and almost innocuous, so that Trowa almost doubted he’d even asked a question.

They’d taken his belt. And his shoes. Were they idiots? Duo didn’t need help to kill. But with that bruise growing dark on his cheek and his eyes red with strain, he did look wild under the skin.

“You're not telling me everything," Trowa said.

"No," Duo acknowledged.

"Maybe you should."

Duo’s fingers were curled exactly like his, on the edge of the cot he sat on. "I can't."

"Then I can't help you."

"Tro. I'm asking." Duo licked his lips, and this time it seemed to mean something. "I've got nothing to give you in return. I'm sorry. I'm asking anyway."

"I didn't ask you for anything except the whole story." He had to pull his hand back from Duo’s shirt, a physical act that required planning and ambition and engendered a mix of anger and resentment after. He shoved his hands in his pockets to punish them. "Have they set bail?"

"Yeah."

He waited. Duo let him stew. He grimaced and asked it. "How much?"

"More than I got," was the succinct answer.

"How. Much?"

Duo’s lips were thin and there was tightness about his eyes. "Half a million,” he said flatly. “I'm a flight risk."

Maybe. Probably. "I'll have you out in an hour,” Trowa told him. “Then we're going to talk."

“You don't have that much either," Duo interrupted.

Trowa did nothing more than blink at the other man. "Back in an hour," he repeated, and knocked on the bars. The guard who’d been lingering just around the corner reappeared immediately to let him out. He wanted to look back as he left, so he made sure he didn’t. “You got a private phone I could use?” he asked the man.

“Yes, sir,” was the polite answer. “There are several private booths in the lobby.”

“That would be fine.” Trowa followed the guard’s gesture, and they took the lift up out of the basement holding cells. Duo was in virtual isolation there; all the other men and women being held overnight were upstairs in public pens. Trowa was glad the court had taken the precaution. If they’d tossed a cop, even one out of uniform, into the general population, Duo wouldn’t have lasted overnight. As it was, his solitary cell called into question the circumstances about the new decoration on his face.

It was late enough that the lobby was almost empty. The guard didn’t leave the lift with Trowa, and he chose one of the promised booths, gratified to see that it locked from the inside. He settled onto the small leather seat, thinking through his options. Quatre was the obvious choice- he had money and influence, and Duo was going to need both working for his defense. The news media would pick up the story of a cop accused of killing guys very quickly; arraigning Duo at night had given them a few hours to dig the trenches, but it wouldn’t be much. Besides, Quatre had always had a soft spot for Duo. They were good friends, going back to the early days of the war. And Quatre had set them up for their first date. Invited them both to dinner, then “had” to answer calls that somehow lasted hours. It hadn’t been all that subtle the first time, but by the third time, it was pretty hard to ignore. Quatre had a deep and abiding urge to meddle, and absolutely no moral compunction about doing it. Insufferably pleased with himself when it worked, too. It was hard to hold it against him, though. You couldn’t grow up with all that female influence, and not have that interfering gene.

It was still early afternoon on L4. He stuck his calling card into the slot, and dialed Quatre’s office number, adding the extension that Quatre gave only to people permitted to bypass his security measures. The clicks as his call transferred always made him nervous. He knew Quatre’s private calls weren’t monitored, but he never quite trusted the extension to guarantee their privacy. It took a while for the signal to relay across the vast distance, and he waited it out impatiently. When Quatre’s face finally appeared on the screen, the best Trowa could do for a greeting was a stiff nod.

“Hey,” he said. “Listen, I hate calling in favours, and I don’t even remember anymore who owes who, but I need you.”

 

**

 

_"It's bullshit and you know it."_

"Of course it is." Quatre paused, rolling a pen between his fingers. "Has he told you what it is, though?"

Trowa’s shoulders lifted in a little shrug, framed by the mahogany backdrop of a fancy private booth. _"No,”_ he said, _“but he will."_

Quatre raised his eyebrows, knowing the expression irked his old friend. "Sure of that, are we?"

 _"Yes."_ It was spoken flatly, and Trowa’s eyes turned blank as they could sometimes. When he was cornered. Quatre had always wondered if Trowa knew that was his give-away.

He let it pass for the moment. "It'll get him points with the District Attorney if he's got an alternative explanation," he added, returning to the reality at hand. “If he was running an independent investigation... got a tip-off...”

_"I'll make sure he has one of those too.”_

“Why didn’t Heero and Wufei ask him? It seems like a big step, arresting one of their own officers.” He was musing aloud. He knew Trowa didn’t know, by the flicker in his expression. Non-expression. Duo did it better– he’d learnt it from Trowa, and improved on it.

 _“Just– call someone,”_ Trowa repeated. _“Whoever you have to."_

"I'll do my best," Quatre promised, already calling up his phone list on his PDA. “I should warn you both that it might be too late to make this disappear, but I will–”

_"Thank you."_

Quatre was caught open-mouthed. Trowa rarely said that. Had only ever once before said it to him, actually, and never for the kind of thing that Quatre was going to do anyway, that Quatre was perfectly capable of doing.

He stuttered as he replied, and his cheek was warm when he pressed his fingers to it. "Of course." He stared down at the screen of his PDA, selecting the number of his lawyer’s firm on automatic. Then he queued his bank’s. “What are they asking for bail?”

 _“Five hundred,”_ Trowa said.

“Thousand?” Quatre asked sharply. “He doesn’t even make fifty a year.”

_“I can pay half right now. I can pay you back the other half within six months."_

Quatre had few illusions about Trowa these days. He’d been in politics long enough to know when to ask and when not to. Trowa didn’t volunteer information, and Quatre didn’t go looking for it; but he understood that silence spoke loud enough, if you knew how to listen. It was not, perhaps, wildly beyond possibility that Trowa could have a quarter million lying about legitimately. Not wildly.

"There's no rush," he said as lightly as he could, and started writing his request for a wire-transfer, punching the keys on the palm pilot with his thumb and opening a phone line. He plugged a small microphone into the PDA and pressed the earpiece against his canal. “He can stay with me," he added, and called the bank.

Trowa was already shaking his head. _"He's coming home with me."_

"They charged such a high bail for a reason. They'll want assurances that he's not still a risk. If I vouch for him, that's something." Quatre held up a hand to stop Trowa from speaking, and spoke into the microphone. “Philip,” he said. “This is Quatre Winner. I need to arrange a transfer to an account number that I’m emailing. I’m sending the paperwork along in just a minute... Thank you. It’s an urgent matter, so as fast as you can do.... thank you.” When he’d closed the call, he returned to their conversation. He made his offer carefully. "You could both come here. It's not like I don't have the room."

The corner of Trowa’s mouth went up. _"You're managing us,”_ he said. _“Besides, you can't afford to be dirtied by this, and you would be."_

He ignored the reproof. "What's the point of having advantages if you can't use them to help your friends?"

Trowa’s eyebrows were climbing. _"So, basically, the Vice Foreign Minister is using his resources to bail out a known terrorist."_

"The Vice Foreign Minister is a known terrorist himself."

 _“A fact the world has conveniently forgotten, because he's made good.”_ Trowa leant back in his seat. _“I don't think you want them to remember, Quatre."_

He struggled with it. He exhaled hard. "This habit you have of being right is really rude."

_"I'm just better at seeing the long view than you are, Quatre. You get all blinded when it's your friend in trouble."_

"Well... fine.”

Trowa didn’t have the grace to let it die. He looked just one shade off smug. But then, weirdly, it faded into that– gratitude. Quatre had done many things during their friendship to please Trowa, and money and lawyers were nothing new. Before that, it had been repairs on Gundams, safe houses, a decent meal and a sound night’s sleep. He could count on one hand the times he’d seen that particular expression. Usually for offering help without asking questions; oh, Quatre knew how to keep a friend, didn’t he? But somehow it hurt more to see it and know that Trowa was really–

"At least keep me updated?” Quatre asked. “Let me know if you need more back-up?"

_"Sure. You know I will. Thanks, Quatre."_

"Two ‘thank-you’s in one night." Quatre found a smile, but he couldn’t quite make it stay. "You still like him, huh?"

_“I owe him."_

"What, sex? A Valentine's dinner?"

Trowa scowled. _"Quatre, don't. We broke up."_

"And it was stupid of you. And don't give me that 'you're managing us' crap. I wouldn't have to if you could manage yourselves."

_"He's my friend."_

"Go spring your 'friend' from jail, then," he said, and hung up first.


	2. Two

Wufei hadn’t said anything in almost an hour. Heero had finished his report about their aborted bust and subsequent arrest of a fellow officer found at the scene and was adding his notes about the interrogation. But he found it hard to concentrate. He kept thinking about Duo being arraigned, the way he’d looked, standing slump-shouldered before the judge while his nervous court-appointed representative had stuttered on the ‘not-guilty’ plea. At least they’d been able to do it at night– at least they’d offered bail, not remand. The prosecutor hadn’t been any happier to be there than the defense. They’d want to bury another bad-cop story as fast as they could shovel the dirt.

And Duo in his socks the whole time because his shoes had been taken for footprint analysis.

His coffee was stone cold and thick, but he drank the last swallow anyway to chase a lingering headache. Wufei looked up when he tossed the paper cup to their shared waste bin, and it clattered against the rim.

“You don't believe him," Heero said abruptly.

Wufei rubbed his mouth, then dropped his hand to his desk. "Not all of it, no. Do you?"

"It's not like him."

"How well do you know Duo anymore? Really?” Wufei took off his glasses and rubbed the red indentations they’d left on the bridge of his nose. “You don't spend significant time with him. You haven't worked with him in any profound way in years, and even then it was very sporadic."

"I could say the same about half the force,” Heero argued. “If we're even looking for a cop."

"Who says we're looking for a cop?" Wufei paused, gazing down the avenue left by their computers between their facing desks, carefully adjusting the lay of his calendar until it was parallel with the edge. "If Duo is telling the truth, this could be a simple gang slaying over drugs or money. Unless he said something to you privately?"

Heero didn’t have to look at his report. He was too tired for it to make much sense, anyway. "He– maybe he hinted?" He stared down at the pictures from the crime scene. The body, twisted where it had fallen, face ripped open with a single bullet. Blood sprayed liberally over the wall, but at a curiously low level, perhaps half a tall man’s height; CSI thought Vasquez had been forced to kneel. An execution. Duo’s gun had still had a full clip, but it was easy enough for a smart man to hide the emptied one. Maybe on that missing second body. "I don't know,” he said. “If he knew, he would have told us."

"That's a crock of shit. He's hiding things. He's protecting someone. You said it yourself." Wufei adjusted his calendar again, though it was already perfect, turning his lamp on it to be sure. “Maybe he's protecting himself."

"When has he ever protected himself?" Heero pressed. “He’s not exactly known for self-preservation.”

"Would you even have noticed?" Wufei didn’t really intend for him to answer, though. He quietened, leant back in his chair. It creaked softly. His head turned slowly, his eyes roving the office floor over the empty desks of their fellow officers, now home in bed, or passed out in the crib in the back. There were only two others still in the building with them, and they sat drooped over their own desks metres away, absorbed in their work.

"You think a cop did this," Wufei said.

Heero held up the top picture, the one he’d been looking at. "Look at his room. Nothing touched except the body. All the violence contained in one place. Gangs are messier, destructive. Or if it was the mafia, they'd be– this was an efficient kill." He rubbed the edge of the photo, clipped it back into place on the report. "How did they pull so much intel on Vasquez so quickly? Preventers had him under investigation already?"

Wufei took the photo from him, but he barely glanced at it before laying it on the desk before him. "Do you have a theory?" he asked.

"I want to see the forensics first." Then he was shaking his head. "There have been others like this. A few years ago, you remember? And everyone thought-" Thought it could be a Preventer. But the murders had dried up, the trail had never come to anything, and it had been one less thing to worry about. Until Duo turned up in the room with a body, and no good explanation.

"I want to canvas the building for witnesses."

Wufei stared at him for a long, cold moment. "This building?" he clarified softly.

Heero looked up, suddenly dry-mouthed at what he had implied. "No,” he said, and it came out on an odd croak. He cleared his throat. “The building where we found Vasquez."

Wufei glanced down at his watch, then stood, lifting his jacket from the back of his chair and grabbing his glasses. “Want to go for a ride?"

 

**

 

Duo tossed the bag he’d been given holding his wallet, coat, and belt to the floor beside the door. Trowa hung up his coat, and then Duo’s beside it, and flicked on the living room lights. He caught Duo’s arm when Duo would have passed him, and touched the swelling bruise on his left cheek. "Who did this?" he demanded softly.

Duo’s eyes flickered over him. "Another question I'm not going answer."

"So what can you do, Duo?” He released the other man in a little disgust. “Are you going to run?"

"I don't know yet." Duo dropped onto Trowa's couch, and his head fell back to rest on the cushions. "I don't... I don't exactly have a plan."

Trowa shoved his car keys deep into his pocket. "You don't trust me at all," he guessed.

"I do. More than I'd trust my own mother, if I knew who the fuck she was." His voice was thin about the edges. Trowa felt a little prick of worry and pity. “This is going all to pot and I don't know what to do yet."

It was now eight in the morning. Trowa had at least had a few hours of sleep the night before, but he was tired; Duo was trying to make it into Space on fumes and nothing else. "You need to sleep,” Trowa said. “And eat something. Come on and I’ll feed you."

Duo came back to his feet as if it took the rest of his strength, and he trudged into the kitchen with his head down and his feet shuffling on the carpet. Trowa revised his evaluation further downward when Duo let himself be pointed to a chair and taken care of. Trowa opened a bottle of beer and poured most of it into a glass he thought was clean. He finished the last few swallows himself out of the bottle as he set the glass before Duo. "What are you hungry for?" he asked, just as he remembered that all he had was half a leftover pizza and some American cheese.

"I don't know if I should get drunk right now."

"I'm not feeding you coffee." Toasted cheese. He pinched a spot of mould from the crust of his bread and buttered the slices while he heated a pan. "Drink the beer. It will help you sleep," he added. The cheese melted quickly, he only burnt the bread a little. He pried the sandwich out of the pan with his fingers and dropped it onto a plate, and set it before Duo. Then he took it back, and jimmied the halves apart. He used the last of his mayonnaise to slather the melted cheese, stuck the bread back together.

Duo grinned a little in that way he had. He drained half the beer in big swallows, took the plate when Trowa pushed it back at him. "Thanks," he said.

"Sure."

Duo lifted the greasy sandwich to pick at it. He ate off the corners first. “Tro... 'm so sorry. For getting you into this. And for– not calling lately."

"Stop it."

"I can be fucking sorry."

"It's dumb. I'd have said ‘no’ if I didn't want to help you. Eat your food, before you pass out, moron."

Duo managed half the sandwich, and drank the rest of the beer. Trowa watched him throughout it, feeling stupid himself for not looking away and half sure that Duo would vanish if he did. The worry of that kept growing the longer he looked at Duo sagging over his plate. He found himself abruptly declaring, "I'm glad you called me."

Duo licked his fingers. "Yeah? Mess-Up Maxwell?"

The forward momentum of his doubts de-railed with that unexpected joke. It took him a moment to recover. "No-one but you ever used that name."

The other man laughed almost silently at that. "It had everything. Alliteration. Brevity."

"It's bullshit. Come on." He wrapped one arm about Duo and pulled him physically from his chair. Duo still fit against him– he smelled like jail cells and alcohol, but he sighed when Trowa touched him.

"You'll get a call. You know you will."

"I'm unlisted," he said. He all but carried Duo into his bedroom, and there he stripped him slowly, as he would have a tired child, down to his briefs and black trouser socks. "Get in bed," he ordered, nudging the pile of Duo’s clothes in the direction of the hamper. When he pushed, Duo went down. Trowa considered him, then added, "If you're going to talk to me, I'll stay."

Duo’s expression never changed; but then, he’d known Trowa for a long time. They didn’t have to constantly evaluate each other any more. "Within limits," he said.

"We'll see about those,” he countered. He switched on the bedside lamp. It was very dim, not even bright enough to read a book in bed. He nudged off his loafers, then shed his shirt and jeans. He crawled onto his bed, pulling Duo up after him until they were both comfortably stretched out. He settled on his side so he could face Duo, propping up his chin on his hand and trying to remember if Duo had always had that freckle right there beside his upper lip. "Okay,” he said. “So, talk."

"I got a call from a contact about some shit going down in the neighbourhood. Lotta cars. Shots fired."

"Okay."

"I went down there. I got the super to let me into the building. He said there'd been shouting, then a crowd left. Bangers. Bad bones. I went upstairs.” Duo recounted it drily, almost with disinterest. He must have used the morning to practise. “Door was open. Dead guy on the floor."

"And that's when the mounties arrived?"

"Yeah. More or less. Maybe... maybe five minutes. Definitely less than ten."

"It's thin, Duo,” Trowa felt compelled to say. “Very thin."

"You don't need to tell me. The truth usually is."

"So that's half the story,” he guessed. “What's the rest?"

Duo propped himself against the headboard. The bruise was livid now. Trowa wondered if they should document it. Duo muttered, "We're getting toward the limits."

"Go to the edge,” he suggested. “And we'll see how hard I have to push to get the rest."

"No, man. Just– don't, okay."

This part was familiar. He and Duo were fundamentally opposed on issues of honesty; Duo was stupid for it, the way Duo could sometimes be, a little too ready to be simple when the issue was too damn complicated for simple. It didn’t automatically make Duo wrong but it never failed to make things harder, and Trowa definitely did not agree that a life of trudging uphill was well-spent.

Duo read his silence. He said, "If I've got reasonable doubt, I don't need to be innocent."

"But you are," he pointed out. Not asked.

And Duo not-answered with that screaming vulnerability he sometimes had, usually right on the heels of the stupid. He reached for Trowa’s hand– or put his out, anyway, and waited for Trowa to take it. Trowa did. Duo traced the creases across his palm, then drew random circles.

"You're aware this means I just have to figure it out myself, right?" He looked up in time to see Duo sigh and glance away.

"Don't suppose I could ask you not to think too hard."

“You can ask." So could he, though. He squeezed Duo’s hand, the only warning he was going to give. "Which one of us was it?" Yeah, and Duo looked back at him– did he think that look fooled anyone? Especially Trowa. But maybe he didn’t. So they sat looking at each other, long enough for Trowa to be sure he’d conveyed what he wanted to– that he was never going to believe Duo would take the fall unless it was one of a very limited pool of people who were all in a position to be sure that when Duo fell, he never got up again.

Damn it.

"This isn't the first time, is it?"

"You find it satisfying to talk at me knowing I'm not gonna answer you?" Duo demanded seriously.

"I keep hoping you'll trust me at least this far."

"I can't, Trowa.” He sat up and freed his hand. “Legally and morally I can't. If either of us had to testify it could be perjury– if you had to–"

"I'm not you. That's what you're saying? I wouldn't trade you for whoever you're protecting?"

"I don't fucking know,” Duo snarled at him. “I didn't have this all planned out in case I ever walked in on a murder!"

"Several murders." He said it fast, watching for any kind of slip. But Duo didn’t verify with so much as an in-drawn breath. Oh, yes. Trowa knew this mood intimately. Duo was stubborn, and the more tired he got, the more the stubborn grew. Duo rolled onto his back and dropped his arm over his eyes. "I'm gonna get fucked on this," he said.

"Not if you open your mouth. Who, Duo? Was it Yuy?"

"No. Don't ask me."

"Fuck you, I'm asking. Who are you protecting? Chang?"

"Don't ask me,” Duo repeated forcefully. “I don't know what to do yet but I got to be sure it's right."

"I can help you, but only if you tell me what you're chasing."

"I'm just–" The frustration in Duo’s voice was strangling. He pressed harder with his forearm, but not before Trowa saw the moisture he was hiding. Guilt nudged him. He relented, reaching to touch this time with tenderness. He gently brushed back Duo’s frazzled fringe, then stroked Duo’s bare arm, until Duo let him draw it away. His eyes were almost dry, the lashes just a little damp.

"Sorry,” Trowa apologised in a murmur. “Sleep now, all right. We'll talk in the morning."

"You gonna stay? Even though I didn't talk." He slurred a bit, and grimaced when he heard it.

"All right. C'mere." He pulled Duo onto his shoulder, and wrapped an arm about him, kicking at the blanket until he snagged it and managed to draw it up over their bodies. He used every trick he’d ever learnt for calming Duo down– holding, but not trapping, petting without disturbing. He sifted his fingers through Duo’s hair, following the strands back to the base of the braid, listening to the slight rasp of his fingernails against Duo’s scalp. And soon enough, Duo– not relaxed, but un-stiffened. His breathing evened out, and the press of his cheek against Trowa’s shoulder became just a little heavier as he let go. When he settled his hand against Duo’s back, he could feel Duo’s heartbeat, steady and slow.

If it seemed bad now, it was only going to get worse. The media would be looking at the new dockets in a few hours, and the story would be everywhere by evening. And then some journalist would dig a little deeper and find Duo’s war record– nothing the government claimed was ‘purged’ ever really disappeared, and Trowa knew that as well as anyone could. And that didn’t even touch the deeper problem. Duo didn’t take the fall for random nobodies. It was someone he knew, knew well. Which meant it was probably someone Trowa knew, too. There weren’t many possibilities, and all of them left him feeling... uh. Frustrated. Vaguely ill.

And Duo would need him. Again. To– be. To _do_. And Duo wouldn’t settle for Trowa just standing still enough to be leant on.

 

**

 

“Did you notice any disturbances last night, ma’am?” Wufei asked, his face blank as he clasped his hands behind him. The lady in question, eighty if she was a day and towering over the slender Chinese man, glowered back as she answered in a strident Afrikaans accent.

“No, I tell you again,” she spat. “No noise all night, until you kerels come knockin’ down peoples’ doors.”

“Did you know the man who was murdered here last night? Rene Vasquez?”

She huffed as she straightened her lacy shawl over her shoulders and planted herself in her rocker. “He a bad ag. Always gesuip– drunk. He bring dem girls in here, they party all night. Mess everywhere.” She sniffed at him as she caressed her crucifix, turning her glare to Heero. “Ek se. When you gonna leave this place alone?”

Heero was spared having to answer when his mobile rang. He excused himself with a mutter and turned his back on the woman and his partner, leaving her apartment and stepping into the corridor to answer. He didn’t recognise the number, but he accepted the call anyway, pressing it to his ear. "Yuy."

_“You arrested him. You booked him. You hit him. All when you know he didn't do this."_

It was Trowa’s voice. Wufei came out behind him, and Heero gestured to his phone. Wufei nodded, closing the woman’s door and leaning against it.

Cautiously keeping his tone even and casual, Heero said, "This is probably not a call you should be making."

 _"Maybe, but I'm doing it.”_ Trowa was unreservedly biting. _“We need to talk. When, if not now?"_

Who is it? Wufei mouthed.

Heero held up three fingers, watching Wufei make the connection. To Trowa, he replied, "I can't discuss any of the details of our investigation with you."

_"Okay, fine. That's cool. We'll call you from the road then for updates."_

"Fuck, Trowa," he blurted, caught flat-footed. "Wait."

_"Yes?"_

Heero hesitated. Wufei was glaring at him, but Heero knew Trowa was perfectly capable of disappearing. And if he took Duo with him, Duo was as good as guilty in the eyes of the law, and he’d blow his own defence wide open.

"Did he say anything to you?” he asked finally. “Does he have any proof?"

 _"I'm afraid I can't discuss this case with you,"_ Trowa snapped. Heero heard the smirk, and ground his teeth together. "You think I want to arrest my friend?" he demanded.

_"Maybe you do, Yuy. If you're the killer."_

What the hell had Duo been saying? Or was Trowa just being Trowa, poking raw wounds just to get a reaction? "No," he said flatly.

 _"I want to talk,”_ the other man repeated. _“Are you going to talk to me?"_

"Yeah. Yes. You want to meet somewhere?"

_"That's the idea, yeah. There’s a diner in my part of town. Joe’s. Can you get there by ten?”_

Heero glanced down at his watch. If they ignored the speed limits, maybe. “Yeah. Don’t leave if I’m not there spot on time.”

He didn’t get an answer. Trowa hung up. With a muttered curse, so did Heero, and he clipped the phone back to his belt.

Wufei eyed him. "Well?"

"I gather Duo called him." He saw Wufei’s expression, and said defensively, "Why are you so determined to think badly of him?"

"I'm not determined to think anything,” Wufei retorted. “I'm just trying to figure out what he's hiding. Aren't you?"

"It's pretty damn obvious that what he's hiding is a who."

"Or he's making it look like it." Wufei ripped the elastic out of his hair, scratched his head hard, then pulled the ponytail back together. “He's one of us," he said, quietly, patiently. A little sadly, though Heero didn’t understand why. "Or he was. I suppose that's worth something. But you can't let it blind you to the facts. I won't argue that the men he's killed didn't deserve it, but let's be clear, it's still murder." He smoothed down a lank lock of hair over his ear, gazing down the hallway, inscrutable. Just when Heero would have spoken, Wufei said abruptly, "I can help you make this go away if you want, but we have to agree and it has to be final."

That surprised him. Then it made him angry. He pushed a finger into Wufei’s chest, leaning in to keep his voice quiet. "He didn't do it, Wufei. He looked me in the eye and said he didn't. I believe him."

Dark brown eyes turned to him. "Is that your decision then?"

"Don't be so fucking cavalier. We have the opportunity to exonerate him. That's our job."

"Fine." Wufei brushed Heero’s finger away with a negligent flick of his wrist, but he didn’t look away and he didn’t blink. "That's what we'll do, then."

Heero turned on his heel and headed for the stairs, aware of Wufei coming after him. By the time they were out in the street again, he felt steady enough to say what needed to be said, if he planned on keeping Wufei as a partner and a friend. He dug their car keys from his pocket, and as he pressed them into Wufei’s palm, hoping it looked like an apology. Maybe not. Wufei took them and crossed to the driver’s side to let them in. Heero sat, pulling the door closed and jerking on the safety belt.

“You're meeting with Barton?" Wufei overcranked the ignition, and his face acquired some colour when the engine groaned. He pulled away from the curb without signaling.

"Yeah. You coming?"

"I'd like to." He eyed Heero sidelong for a moment before speeding up for a ramp onto the highway. "Am I invited?"

"You're my partner," Heero said.

 

**

 

They got there ahead of him, because Trowa let them sweat a little bit, watching from his car in the bowling lane parking lot across the street for a half hour. When he finally strolled in, they were sitting in a booth with a clear view of the door, in plainclothes as if they didn’t radiate “officer of the law.” Trowa let the door bang and the bell clank, just to watch their heads swerve toward him in tandem. He hung his jacket on the peg at their booth, and slid onto Heero’s side, forcing him to move further up the sticky pleather bench. He met Wufei’s scowling eyes, and made his opening sally.

“All three of us know it wasn't Duo and that the charge isn't going to hold up for long.” Then he smiled, first at Wufei, then at Heero beside him. “So which one of you was it?”

Wufei’s eyes went narrow. "I can appreciate your anger, but what makes you think it was one of us?"

Trowa faked a casual shrug as he reached across Heero to take a plastic menu from behind the napkin dispenser. "Duo doesn't open a vein for just anyone," he answered. He flipped through the pages. “Can't really be Heero, though. He's had the heat for Duo since the war. It'd be out of character to let Duo fry for him."

He felt Heero shift next to him. And he didn’t miss the look that went across the greasy table to Wufei, but Wufei had more aplomb. He only leant back in the booth with a small, wearied exhale. "So, it's me, then,” he said drily. “Obviously."

Heero shifted again. "This is ridiculous, and it doesn't help anyone."

“Probably not,” Trowa said. “How's the club sandwich here, you think?"

"It was serious enough that we booked him, Trowa. It's not going to go away just because none of us think he did it."

"You know,” Trowa told him, “I really couldn't care less which one of you did it. I just want Duo off the hook."

Wufei broke his concentration with a low interjection. "I didn't know you and he were back together."

There was an insinuation there, and it stung a bit. "We're not," he said shortly. He dropped his eyes back to the menu. He could feel Heero staring at his face, and Heero shifted his legs again– what the hell was that about?– and their shoes brushed under the table. It took an effort not to jerk back, but he didn’t.

"What's with the avenging boyfriend routine, then?"

"Is that what I'm doing? I thought I was helping a couple of buddies bail out an old friend."

"You're right. Duo doesn't 'open a vein' for just anyone.” Heero paused. “He'd do it for you. And you'd let him."

He did look up at that. Then he spread his hands in elaborately false surprise. "Fuck; maybe it was me, then."

Wufei slammed his water glass onto the table. "What is your problem?" he demanded.

“Duo's my problem,” Trowa snapped back. “Is he yours?" He didn’t wait for an answer, but shoved the menu aside and folded his arms on the table, turned enough to see both the other men. "I didn't know anything about anything until Duo called, and he's not telling me a thing,” he said. “So what do you know?"

Heero and Wufei did that thing that partners and couples did, the thing that Trowa and Duo had never quite managed to get down pat, where they glanced at each other and somehow telepathically exchanged an entire conversation’s worth of information without a word. Wufei nodded at the end of it. "Tell him everything," he murmured. And just like that, Heero gave in, which left Trowa scowling to himself, but he took the folder Heero put on the table and had it open before he registered that it was far too thick to be about one dead gangster, even a mean one.

"These are the ones that matched MO," Heero explained curtly.

He paged through photographs of crime scenes, arrest records, interview notes, stuff that went back eighteen months, three years-- six, seven, eight years. A priest who’d killed a kid he’d molested; the priest’s car, burnt to a crisp with the dead man in it. A restauranteur on the take with a radical group of religious terrorists, slitting his wrists messily all over a grimy kitchen floor. "How many?" he asked, impressed until he realised–

"Nine."

"– you're going after him on all of them."

Wufei answered, stirring the ice in the bottom of his glass with the plastic straw. "No, we're not going after him. We're trying to assure that when the DA does, we can prove it's too flimsy to get a conviction."

He looked between them. Both were wearing their cop faces again, almost as bad as their poker faces. He could read everything. “And is it?" he pressed them.

"I don't know," Heero said.

And, "We believe that it is," Wufei said, over top of that. They looked at each other, but the telepathy seemed to be a little broken this time.

Trowa licked his teeth, deciding how best to proceed. "Quatre's offered his legal team,” he said at last. “They know how to punch holes in even the most iron-clad case. I think you should fax what you have to Quat."

"We can't until they subpoena it," Heero interrupted.

He rolled his eyes. "Fuck sake, do it on the quiet if you have to."

"It needs to get done the right way. And I'm pretty sure the reason you're asking for this, and not him, is because he'd never even think to do it 'on the quiet.'"

"No, he's not going to ask for fucking anything because he'd rather take the hit than incriminate anyone,” Trowa retorted angrily. “That's what he said to me when he called. He needed a way out that wouldn't screw anyone else over." He knocked Heero deliberately with his elbow as he jammed the menu back in its spot behind the napkins. "I'll call Quatre and tell him to have his team put through the papers." Except he and Heero reached for the case files at the same time, and Heero closed it on his fingers. Trowa stared grimly.

He covered it with a small, derisive sound. "You think I can't find at least as much information as is in that file within half a day on my own?"

Heero stood, forcing Trowa out of the booth. He didn’t make it easy, though, and Heero had to step out of his way while he put on his coat and belted the file inside. Heero caught his eyes smack on, and said, "If you can, then I suggest you do."

Wufei muttered as he slid off his bench, grabbing his own coat off the hook. "Stubborn fools,” he muttered. “When you're finished with the pissing match, maybe we can accomplish something."

He let them go, not bothering to look as the bell clanged with their exit. He flagged a waitress, and reached for the menu again, this time actually meaning to read it; but though he stared at the words, they didn’t resolve into focus.

He was pretty well sure that Heero wasn’t guilty. And damn certain that Heero wouldn’t ever get around to suspecting his partner.


	3. Three

Quatre hung up after nine rings, resigned to the fact that Trowa had deactivated his voicemail and was set on ignoring him. He checked his watch to be sure he had the time difference right; it should be early afternoon in California.

While he was considering just sending an email, his phone rang. His desk phone, not the mobile he’d been using to call Trowa. He answered with a sigh. “Winner,” he said.

_"Hello, Quatre."_

“Relena!” He turned to face the monitor, tilting it forward to see her smiling face. “Hello yourself,” he said, so pleased to see her that he actually let go of his palm pilot for the first time all morning. “It's been a while."

 _"Too long,”_ she replied, tugging on a silver earring. _“I'm terrible about these things. How are you?"_

“Overwhelmed, exhausted, and vaguely terrified." He flashed her a little rueful grin. "You?"

 _"Not quite as busy as all that."_ She looked good, he couldn’t help thinking. Were those the earrings he’d given her last Christmas? _"Listen, I don't know if this is at all appropriate, but I think you may want to call Duo Maxwell."_

He blinked, surprised. "Why..."

_"I think he's in a bit of trouble. He may need a friend now."_

He rubbed the back of his head. "To be honest, Trowa already called me about it. Who rang you?"

_"I'd rather not say."_

Ah. "You've been practicing dark magic again?" he teased. “Nude sabbath dances under the full moon?"

Her smile was rather enigmatic, and her slender eyebrows arched at him. _"A girl's entitled to some secrets, isn't she?"_

"If you don't mind that that's going to be my fantasy for the next three weeks."

_"Not if you don't mind I imagine you joining me."_

He was grinning now. She was definitely flirting with him. "When this call hits the morning news, I'll deny everything."

 _"Oh, definitely. I'll deny ever knowing you."_ Then she said, _"Why don't we see each other more, Quatre?"_

They’d dated for a while– or he’d asked her out several times over the course of a few months– but it had petered out to nothing when his duties had called him back to the colonies. He felt his smile fading, but all he could do was shrug, in the end. "There's not an easy answer to that, is there."

 _"No, I suppose not."_ Relena glanced down at something beyond the screen, her lips pursed. When she looked up again, her smile was more distant. _"Is Duo going to be all right?"_

He rubbed his eyes and toed off his shoes under his desk. "I don't know. I called Trowa but he won't get back to me, and Duo's at Mr Unlisted’s place."

_"Ah, I see. You'll let me know if I can help?"_

“Sure. If you don't see a prophecy about it first in your tea leaves."

_"What's wrong, Quatre? You're unhappy."_

He didn’t answer right away, shuffling papers uselessly on his desk, pulling a row of post-its from his computer screen and rearranging them in a straight-edged line. "We used to be friends," he said at last.

 _"I don't think it's really past tense, Quatre."_ She said it calmly, placating without patronising him. _"They're in the middle of a crisis now, Quatre. I'm sure there are things to handle."_

"It's not just this." He drew a deep breath to clear his head, and let it out through his nose. He hadn’t thought it through himself, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit to a sort-of-girlfriend that mostly he felt left out and lonely. In the end, though, he opted for honesty. "It's more like... this is the first time he's called me in months,” he admitted slowly. “I get that he's busy. And I haven't been able to see him for a while. But he was my best friend. I guess... I miss him." He could see the gears grinding in her head. She always got a certain look when she thought she’d solved the puzzle, and she’d start bitting the inside of her lip– yes, just like that. “You're going to devastate me with a horribly accurate assessment, aren't you?" he asked warily.

She chuckled, her shoulders relaxing. _"No, I think maybe not."_

“No, give me the zinger. Go on."

 _"All right then, but try to remember later you asked for this."_ Teasing. Then, seriously, she said, _"We've all been in love with someone we probably shouldn't, I think."_

He stared at her, his chest going a little tight. "This is where I pretend not to understand."

 _“And I change the subject.”_ Her smile went up a notch in fake brightness. _“Have dinner with me. We'll talk politics."_ He let himself laugh, and she relaxed again. _“Say yes, Quatre."_

"Of course yes."

_"Oh, good. I think we'll have fun."_

And the media would be drooling. They’d made entertainment news everywhere when they’d attended an opera together in Hong Kong last year, though rumours had died down the last nine months or so since Quatre’d gone back to Space. "Am I going to you or are you coming to me?" he asked, finding his notebook again and opening the calendar section.

_"I issued the invitation. You choose the restaurant."_

He thought about it. It wouldn’t be hard for her to come to the colonies, but if he went to Earth instead, he could see her, and then jump to California and personally check in on Duo and Trowa. “Chef's table at Cafe Kirwan," he suggested finally. They’d had their first date there. It was a great place– he’d been trying hard to impress her– and he knew she liked it. She looked pleased now, maybe a little flattered even.

 _“I'd love that,"_ she agreed.

"I'm really glad you called," he said.

_"So am I, Quatre. I've missed you."_

When they hung up a few minutes later, he was feeling strangely thoughtful.

 

**

 

When Trowa got home, he was stopped in the door by the realisation that things looked different. It took a long and mistrustful look about the place, conducted from the safety of the front door, to figure out why.

Duo had cleaned.

The carpet looked suspiciously fresh. The empty Chinese cartons that had been growing mould on the coffee table were gone. His newspapers had been stacked. When he cautiously entered the kitchen, it got worse. The sink was empty for the first time in a year and the dishwasher was radiating heat and lemon from being used. The table was scrubbed, and the linoleum was shiny. Steeling himself, Trowa opened the refrigerator. As he’d feared. There was food in it.

Duo was asleep on the bed, wearing a pair of Trowa’s jeans, so long on him they covered his feet. Trowa sat on the mattress beside him. Duo’s back was pale, though his arms and face had got a little colour to them since coming to Earth. Trowa traced the bumps of Duo’s spine, watching the white skin shiver where his fingertip passed. When he reached the small of Duo’s back, Duo twitched. Sighed. Turned his head, and saw Trowa looking at him.

“I didn’t break you out of jail so you could be my maid,” Trowa said.

Duo snorted into the pillow. “Too bad. You need one. Your bachelor pad practically had a crust.”

“You shopped.” He kept his hands to himself now that Duo was awake. Even the damn sheets were washed.

Duo rolled onto his back, making sleepy sighs on each exhale. He looked tired. He looked spooked. His eyes were that amazing purple colour.

“Bought you green beans and sweet corn,” he said. “Some tinned stuff. The organic spaghetti with tofu meatballs.”

He couldn’t help the laugh that sprang out of his gut without his permission. “I never eat that stuff.”

“But you like it.”

“Health nut.”

Duo said, "You were gone longer than I thought you'd be."

Long enough for Duo to scrub his entire house and hit the specialty grocer who was a half-hour away. Trowa worried suddenly about the state of his bathroom. "Sorry," he managed, and he was, if only because he could never find things after Duo cleaned. He smoothed Duo's hair back with one hand, noting not as absently as he would have liked that it felt particularly soft after it had just been washed. "Sleep okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. I don't think you've changed these sheets since I moved out."

"Twice." That made Duo crack a grin, so Trowa did too. But not for long. There was too much they had to talk about. And Duo saw it in his face, because he went sober and dark-eyed.

“Yeah,” he said, as if Trowa had asked a question.

He picked at a spot on his duvet that looked permanent. "I went by your place and picked up your mail. Checked your messages. Quatre’s lawyer called already. He wants to meet tomorrow at nine.”

"That'll relieve that little court-appointed rat, I guess.”

He shifted about to lay beside Duo, stretching out next to him. Close enough, on this damn small bed, that Duo– if he wanted or needed to– could– what, cuddle? They weren’t like that. But he still felt bizarrely disappointed when Duo only looked back at him.

In a quiet, hoarse little voice, Duo said, "I'm scared. Isn't that stupid? Because I don't know where this is going."

"It's not stupid.” Trowa shrugged the shoulder he wasn’t laying on. “And for whatever it's worth, Heero and Wufei think you're clean."

Duo breathed in sharply. There was sudden hope looking out painfully in his eyes. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Then, and more quietly, “And I know you are."

Duo came to him, then. His hand smoothed up over the fabric of Trowa’s shirt; his forehead bent to Trowa’s breastbone. The warm puff of Duo’s breath against his chest was unfairly pleasant.

"I missed you," Duo whispered.

His fingers found their way into Duo’s hair, sliding down the strands to the base. Duo had been a fixture in his life for a long time. Even before they’d started sleeping together. He was used to it, used to Duo, in the way you got used to a denim shirt or a favourite coffee cup. And it had been comfortable as long as Duo didn't try to analyse things too much. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised when Duo left, but he had been. And the absence has been grating. His small bed seemed too big, and his flat too quiet.

And he’d always loved the way Duo’s hair felt, just a little bit damp out of the shower, smooth and thick.

"You smell like grease,” Duo said, a while later. “Where'd you go?"

"Diner.” He remembered. “There's a carry-out in the kitchen for you."

"Yeah? What'd you get me?"

"Mac and cheese. I remembered you liked it there."

"Joe’s?” Duo’s voice was pleased, muffled into his shirtfront. “Why'd you remember a thing like that."

"Hell if I know. You should probably stay here til this is all settled." Really, there was no earthly reason why, but it was better to ask while there was a mildly plausible excuse for it. Then he kissed Duo. He hadn't meant to, but it was a decent punt away from that offer he wasn’t sure Duo was going to accept, considering it was Duo who’d walked out last year. Or maybe it was sort of an addendum to the offer. He got farther than he really thought he would, a few centimetres from fondling Duo’s tonsils with his tongue, before Duo pulled away.

"I should go heat up your food," Trowa said.

"I'll eat it later." Duo swallowed. "It’s not that I don’t want to fool around with you. Except I'd want it to mean something and you'd want it not to mean anything and we'd both be disappointed."

Well, that was half what he wanted to hear.

"Why?" he asked. He deliberately didn’t specify why what; he wanted to see what Duo thought he was asking. But it backfired. Duo glared at him. So Trowa backpedaled. "If you want to move back in here, it's all right."

"I never wanted to leave. I did want you to want me to stay."

"I never said I wanted you to leave."

Trowa had counted himself lucky when Duo moved out without the arguing phase. He ought to have known that eventually they’d make up for the lapse. "You got comfortable,” Duo was accusing him. “You didn't try anymore. We were just guys who lived together and had sex."

"You make it sound so cold."

"It was."

"Half of the arrangement, anyway. Isn't that what you're saying?"

They realised at the same time their voices were climbing in volume. Duo glanced away first, staring down at the duvet, picking a thread that was coming loose. "I don't know," he mumbled. "I guess I got too tired to keep trying to fix it. Not your fault."

He reached for the bruise on Duo’s face, a puffy swelling point on his cheekbone bathed in purple. He tried to imagine Heero hitting Duo with those steel-bending fists. He could understand how it had gone down– he’d wanted to hit Duo a few times himself– but thinking it and doing it were two pretty different things. A small part of him wanted to chase Heero down and return the favour.

Then, he supposed, if he did feel that, then he knew at least a little what sex right now would mean to him.

"I don't need you to marry me,” Duo said. “I don't need you to romance me. I just want it to be more than me being the guy who kept showing up."

"If that's what you thought it was, we're more fucked up than I thought." He let out a shallow breath. "You wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be talking about this, if you were that guy." He struggled to find words that Duo would accept. "I don't know if I can give you more than this. I don't know if either of us even know what this is."

"It's a fucking relationship, Trowa. That has well-defined parametres."

"The parameters being that we like being together and we have sex? Or did you want something more from me after all?"

"I want you to feel. I want you to ache when I'm gone. I want you to care whether I make it home at six instead of five."

He slapped a hand onto the duvet impatiently. "It's kind of shitty that you think I don't. I'm not Quatre, Duo, I can't bleed every time I say the wrong thing."

"Do I ask you to?"

He needed distance between them. He left the bed, snapping the buttons on his shirt and wrenching out of it. He tossed it toward the hamper and pulled open his bureau to take out a– damn it, Duo had washed his clothes. No-one should be able to get so much done in the space of a few hours alone. "Seems like nothing else will satisfy you," he said to his clean white undershirts.

"I don't need you to be what you're not,” Duo told his back. “I'm asking you to stop being less than what you already are."

He turned. "Did you want to fuck or not?"

He watched it. Duo just breathed. If there was something going on behind Duo’s eyes, he didn’t know what it was. He looked at the lay of Duo’s body, the lines of his legs in Trowa’s clothes, his pale bare chest and freckled shoulders.

He was glad when Duo said, "Yes."

 

**

 

“Welcome back, gentlemen,” Une greeted them. Heero paused, glancing at Wufei before he finished removing his outer coat and hanging it on the communal rack. Wufei was adjusting his tie in the small mirror inside his locker, as if an impeccable uniform would make up for blood-shot eyes and stiff bodies from too little sleep.

Une waited for them to finish and approach her office in the back of the squad room. “We have company this morning,” she said. “Internal Affairs at two o’clock.”

Heero glanced where she’d indicated, and saw a small group in suits, not uniforms, helping themselves to bagels at the coffee table. “What’s IAB want?” he asked her.

“Our souls on a plate,” Wufei muttered.

“Doubtlessly.” Une handed them a folder each– copies of their reports from Duo’s arrest. Wufei glanced at his partner as he took his, and Heero looked grimly back.

“Then we’ll give them what they ask for,” Heero said.

“Up to and including a full body cavity search,” Une appended briskly. “Yuy, you’re in the break room. Chang, they’ll see you in my office.”

Heero muttered, "If I'm not back in five minutes, they've shot me." He gently whacked Wufei’s elbow with his folder, and got a small smile in return. Two of the suits at the table paused as he passed them. Heero did not acknowledge them, but simply aimed himself at the break room in the back. He was not surprised to see a paper taped to the door advising that the room was in use. He let himself in, and finding it empty, chose a seat on a couch facing the door. That put the bright afternoon sun behind him as well.

He didn’t quite have time to steel himself for what was obviously going to be an uncomfortable interview before the door opened again. He rose when he noticed the skirt, but it wasn’t until he was already on his feet that he focused on the face. Noin.

She ignored his raised eyebrows. She waved him back to his seat, and dragged a chair opposite his couch. Heero sat slowly, regarding her cautiously as she set herself down, a pile of folders in her lap, a paper coffee cup on the floor beside her feet. She wasn’t wearing a uniform, but her badge was clipped to the lapel of her pinstripe jacket. There was nothing friendly in her grave expression.

Without preamble, she said, "Nothing could have surprised me more than what’s in this folder. So what's going on, Heero?"

He wondered, then, if IAB had sent her, knowing they knew each other, or if she’d volunteered herself. He looked at the folder her hands rested on. "It's... what it looks like."

"I'm not sure you mean that." She opened it, and he was actually surprised when it turned out to be the same folder he and Wufei had shown to Trowa just that morning, the file that contained all the homicides they’d linked to a single killer. He’d half expected it to be just a prop. She rifled the pages, then unclipped a pen from her breast pocket and circled something he couldn’t read. "Because what it looks like to me is the most recent in a long string of vigilante killings."

"It may very well be that,” he said. “I don't think there's enough to link the killings except for the fact that we can't solve them."

Her eyes met his. When had she turned to IA, he wondered. She’d spent years out on Mars with Zechs, and as far as he knew, Merquise was still on the Red Planet. Who’d convinced her to start grilling fellow Preventers?

"So we should just let the whole thing slide?" she pressed.

Everyone ran into the Bureau at some point, and Heero had had fewer encounters than most did. But despite knowing that she was just pushing for a reaction, Heero couldn’t help giving her one. It had been barely thirty-six hours since this mess had started, and this promised to be fast and nasty, even for Internal Affairs.

“I don't think anyone's letting anything slide," he told her, and settled himself in for a long, grim day.

 

**

 

"There's nothing for them to find here," Wufei repeated, watching the Director clear her desk of open files and shut down her desktop computer. “They’re here to blow smoke.”

Une glanced up at him as she began locking her drawers. "I don't want them here, Chang, digging through my squad. You get rid of them, and do it as quickly as you can, all right?"

"Relax.” He took one of the chairs facing her desk, tugging at the cuffs of his sleeves to straighten his shirt. “This is nothing."

"No. It isn't." The older woman looked at the door, slightly open for whenever the IAB agents chose to make their entrance. She said, "When they've gone, you and Yuy and I are going to have a long talk. But that's between the three of us. You get IAB off your back and then we'll go from there."

He squinted at her. "What are you talking about?"

"You arrest a fellow Preventer and expect we're not going to be having a sit-down?" She pocketed her keys and picked up the pile of work she would be taking with her. "This isn’t ‘nothing,’ Chang. You tell me it’s ‘nothing’ when officers come to me and tell me they don't want to work with you because you two are so jumpy you'll take down your own men. You tell me it’s ‘nothing’ when the news recycles this every year, every time there's a murder that goes unexplained. You tell that to me when I have to send Maxwell for psych evaluations he didn't earn every year so the Cabinet can rest easy that we're keeping a tight leash on a good cop. And that’s all assuming Maxwell doesn’t go to prison because the DA is getting nervous about mid-term ratings.”

"That's not going to happen," Wufei said.

"No? Did you somehow forget how IAB operates? They'll dig up every word said in anger, every undotted ‘i’ and uncrossed ‘t’, every failure to file a report on time, and they'll turn it into a witch hunt."

"IAB are covering their collective ass,” Wufei snapped. “They don't have anything. There is no case. They don't want to lose us, because we make them look good. This is a game you used to understand."

Une stopped beside his chair and bent down to speak into his ear. "They've been after me to lose the pilots from my force since day one, Chang,” she hissed softly. “And once they've got one of you, the rest will follow. And when you're gone, they'll take me out as well. And we'll all have a lot to answer for when we don't have the law on our side any more. That’s the game, Chang. The only surprise is that we’ve been ahead for this long.”

“Director Une?”

Une straightened unhurriedly, tucking a loose lock of hair back into her chignon. Wufei did not stand, and he didn’t look back, either, as the door creaked open.

“I have a meeting with the brass until four,” Une said, to the people behind his chair that he wasn’t looking at. “When I get back, my office had better be waiting for me.” She walked out without anything further, her heels clicking on the tiles, and Wufei hid a small, albeit weary, smile. If Une had nothing else, she had class.

And she made a lasting impression. Neither of the IAB agents quite dared to take her personal chair.

One, a middle-aged man in a plain brown suit, simply took up a spot against the wall, next to the two-way window that overlooked one of the interrogation rooms next to Une’s office. He took out a pack of cigarettes and held them up to Wufei, who shook his head to indicate he didn’t care. The other, a woman in her thirties, short-haired and aggressively dressed in a tight-fitted shirt with a sloping collar, paced slowly around the edge of the room. She stopped beside her partner as he lit a cigarette.

The woman spoke first. "So,” she said, companionably. “You don't feel like you're wasting your time with this? Not enough real cases for you?"

The faux-friendly tactic annoyed him. "Of course this is a waste of time,” he retorted. “Time I could be spending investigating this case."

"Investigating?” She shrugged, and came to perch on the edge of Une’s desk, crossing her arms under her breasts. “What, you're not happy with the arrest you made? Case closed. It's up to the lawyers now."

He dismissed her with a glance and directed his eyes to a recruiting poster hung on Une’s back wall. "You know that's not how it works. Moreover, when the charges are dropped, we’ll still have a murderer to find."

"Charges dropped," she repeated. "Take me back a bit, I'm confused. You arrested Duo Maxwell."

"Yes. We did."

"At what point during cuffing him did you decide he wasn't the murderer?"

Wufei gripped the arms of his chair, trying not to let her sarcasm grate so much on his nerves. This is how they operate, he reminded himself, by getting under your skin until you say something they think is significant. The best he could do would be to say absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. "Maxwell was arrested,” he answered briskly, “because he was at the scene in circumstances that made it reasonable to do so. Evidence collected since changes the conditions somewhat."

The man moved from his post, passing his partner a file. She opened it on the desk, lifting the notes, paging through slowly. "What evidence?” she asked at last. “Could you direct me to the part of your report where you logged this evidence? You'll have to be specific, I'm afraid, because I don't see anything even remotely exculpatory in here."

"The bullets didn't come from Maxwell's firearm. His clip was full."

"His official issue sidearm, that’s true."

"Maxwell never carried another weapon. He never will. He's attached to that one."

"I suppose you know that because of all that time you spend together, being in the same department and all." She propped a fist on her thigh, and she was watching him like a hawk when he made the mistake of glancing at her.

"I know his habits, yes,” Wufei said. He looked at her partner, as well, knowing that acting too shifty would work against him. The man wasn’t paying them any attention– or he didn’t seem to be. Wufei knew better. “Then there's the fact that he wasn't carrying another weapon when we arrested him,” Wufei added, turning his gaze back to the woman. “His own was in his hand and CSI didn’t turn up an additional gun." He forestalled her reply by pointing to the folder. “Duo Maxwell did not commit that murder. It appeared that he did, but there isn't enough evidence for a conviction and none will ever be found. And I don't think you have any doubts about that either."

 

**

 

"Tell me about Wufei's theory on this,” Noin said. She showed him his own report, and waited, pointedly, for Heero to turn to the corresponding page in his own folder. “I understand he pushed for this arrest, but now he's firmly on the other side, defending Duo pretty doggedly. I'm puzzled."

She wasn’t the only one. Heero had been surprised when Wufei offered to throw the investigation off Duo, but not as surprised as he’d been when Wufei had gone toe-to-toe with Trowa at the diner. Carefully, Heero said, "I think we both feel that we might have jumped a little fast. Not that the arrest was out of order, but rather that there's other options that need investigating."

Noin accepted that for the moment. "Are we still thinking this was the work of a vigilante?” she asked him. Her ankles crossed, and then she bent down to pick up her coffee. Tea, Heero amended, spotting the dangling thread and label from a bag. She sipped, then returned it to the floor. “A Preventer?” she murmured. “Just not Duo Maxwell?"

"It looks that way, yes," he agreed.

"Do you have any thoughts on who it might be?"

"No. I don't see any earmarks.” Heero closed the folder, though she looked annoyed when he did. But why keep it open? He knew what it said. “We'd planned to go back to forensics today," he added. “I want an intensive comparison on the different scenes.”

"What about Wufei?"

"Him, too."

Noin shook her head impatiently, running a hand through the short hair at the back of her head. She closed her folder, as well, and tapped the spine into her palm. It made a soft little thwack. "No, no,” she snapped. “Wufei as a suspect. Has it crossed your mind?"

 

**

 

"I have a very specific task here, Agent. I'm not worried about Maxwell. I'm here to ask you about you."

Wufei forced himself to smile. "This feels like the climax of the plot."

"Let's start with this. Why cover for him?"

"If I had to cover for him, he wouldn't be a man I'd call friend,” Wufei said flatly. “I flatter myself he is a friend."

"Oh? I wonder if he'd say the same, considering your role in all this. Because you're a hard man to figure out, Agent.” She stood, and walked away. Wufei did not turn his head to follow her progress. From behind him, suddenly, she said, “For instance, many of us are still just not sure what was going on in your mind when you joined the Barton Revolution."

Stiffly he answered, "That has no bearing on this case."

He felt her hand come to rest on the back of his chair. "Sore spot?" she asked, about as sympathetic as a shark would have been.

"Not really,” he said icily. “It's ancient history."

"Like being a Gundam Pilot." She took her hand away and went back to walking. Her shoes shuffled on the tile, squeaked just a little the way leather did. "Like watching the self-destruction of your home colony."

Bitch. The curse was sudden and vicious and he only just stopped from verbalising it. He paused too long, knew he did, but he needed that time to pry his fingers off the arms of his chair. “Yes,” he said finally, “exactly like that."

She arrived on the other side of Une’s desk and faced him. "Then you must have a remarkable mind. To compartmentalise like that."

He smiled just a little wider than before at her. "Thank you."

She was the one who paused now. "Of course,” she replied, suddenly genial again. “Let me restate. Why are you covering for Maxwell?"

"I think there are better questions to ask here, don't you?"

"Answer me and we can move on."

"Maxwell doesn't need my help."

"Because, according to you, he's not guilty. Of course, that would hold more weight if you'd determined that before rushing him to booking."

He snapped with a hollow rush that told him he was too far gone long after it was too late to stop. "Maybe what I'm really doing is covering for Yuy,” he heard himself snarl. “Or myself for that matter. Of course, who'd believe Heero Yuy would kill a suspect in cold blood? He's just not that creative. And my reputation is spotless."

It was the spark of triumph in her eyes that stopped him. He made himself breathe, and folded his hands in his lap.

"Spotless," she said softly, "Is a matter of perspective." She left the desk, and settled into the chair next to him. She opened the folder in her lap, and raised her head. "Get comfortable, Agent."

 

**

 

Heero blinked dumbly at Noin, who was glaring back intently, even leaning forward in her seat. "No,” he said forcefully. “Why would it have?"

She made a noise of exasperation. "Oh, come on, Heero. This is exactly the kind of thing Wufei's likely to do."

That offended him, sharp and sudden. "Based on what?" he demanded, tossing his folder to the couch cushions.

"Based on his obsession with justice. Based on how damned tightly he's always been wrapped. Based on his casual attitude toward brutality?" She was actually agitated. The folder tapped hard and fast into her palm. Then she laid it abruptly flat, pressing down on it with her palms as if she expected it to fly away. She exhaled a breath that was far too shaky for Heero’s comfort. "Would you cover for him if you knew that he was guilty, Heero?" she asked.

He stared at her. For a long time. Remembering what she’d been like years ago, how loyal she was, how much her own integrity had mattered to her.

"Yes," he said.

Her eyes dropped from his in angry disappointment. "I hope you're really good at it, Heero, because he's guilty as sin."

"He's not." Heero rubbed his forefinger over the piping that edged the cushion he sat on, thinking his way through it. "And if he was,” he added slowly, “or if Duo was, there'd still be a long trial, and jury members who might see that it was justice, too. There's no certainty– except that there's people dead who did a lot of damage in this world before they were stopped."

Noin reached out to grip his hand. Quietly, she warned him, "Wufei's an arrogant ass. If IAB decides to go after him, he'll go down. Tell me something I can take back to them and stop it."

"He's an arrogant ass with an excellent arrest record and he's been decorated twice for valour,” Heero pointed out. “Isn't that enough?"

"Not if he's killing people in cold blood because it fits his warped idea of justice."

"How is it warped?” Heero freed his hand and stood, stepping to the cooler in the corner. He took out a water bottle and broke the cap. “I'll tell you what's warped. Half these perps got off on technicalities that put them back on the street. Before someone who was not my partner took care of them the way the courts wouldn't."

"That doesn't make it acceptable, Heero,” Noin argued. “We're cops. We're supposed to uphold the law and work within the system. This–" She held up the somewhat battered folder. "No cop has the right."

"No, we're not cops.” Heero returned to the couch, taking a large swallow to ease a throat going tight with tension. “We're Preventers. We have different duties and sometimes those duties require us to work outside the law, especially when the law is wrong."

"That's not up to you to decide, either. Not you, or Wufei." She stopped for a second, her lips pressed closed and white-edged. “Doesn't it bother you just a little he's letting Duo be tried for this?"

"He's not,” Heero denied immediately. “You said yourself he was defending Duo."

She was getting frustrated again. "Wufei's always been all over the map,” she accused. “I don't see how you can trust him."

"It might have something to do with not having been in OZ." He knew it was low when it left his lips. But then, he thought, maybe it didn’t hurt to remember that there’d been sides, once, and not all of them were equally good. That the only reason they were sitting in the same room, wearing the same badge, was a long and dirty war. And he saw that she understood what he meant.

"You're a better friend than he deserves,” she said at last. “Don't let that loyalty destroy your career."

"If my career is that vulnerable to a witch-hunt,” Heero said, “then I want a new career."

"This isn't a witch hunt. I'm doing my job. You're doing yours. Just... be careful. I don't think Wufei is the person you believe him to be, and things could get very uncomfortable for him soon."

"If you think he's guilty, arrest him. If you think he's a bad agent, fire him. Don't crucify him.” Heero finished his water, and stood to toss the empty bottle into the recycle bin. “He hasn't earned that. Especially not from us. We've all been guilty."

She sighed, and her face turned away from him, her eyes going to the window. "Thank you for your time, Heero," she said.

He inclined his head to her, and then he walked out.


	4. Four

He’d never been to Heero’s apartment. It looked nice. Not quite downtown, but not a bad commute in to the department. Heero had probably measured the distance. Three times.

Or maybe not. Even Heero had relaxed over the years. Had he– yeah, he’d come to some of those Friday night things Duo had tried, what, two years ago. Even one at Trowa’s place. Trowa could still picture the bored grimace on– no, that had been Duo. Because Duo had spent an hour trying– God, Duo just didn’t have it in him to surrender sometimes– keeping the conversation going until it had been just Duo asking and answering his own questions, until the clock struck half ten and Duo had kicked everyone out without even an apology. Trowa actually found himself smiling about it as he leant on the door buzzer. He paused, thinking. Then hit it again, and then again, in the old war code for ‘get your ass moving.’

And sure enough, he only waited another forty seconds before the door opened an inch and the muzzle of a pistol peeked through the crack. Then it came out the rest of the way, followed by Heero, looking grumpy and dangerous and more than a little silly in rumpled boxers and a stained teeshirt.

Funny, and just a little cute. Trowa wagged a finger at the gun, and said, "Guess I forgot how seriously you take this shit. Hey.”

Heero’s frown went deeper. But he lowered his piece. Trowa took that as the invitation it probably wasn’t, and fit himself through the little avenue of space Heero had left into the lobby. No front desk. Bet it comforted the rest of the building that Heero ran about half-naked and armed. Oh, hell. The open door at the end of the hall had the Super sign next to it. Heero really had sold out. Maybe he wore his tool belt with his boxers, too. And why did that strike Trowa as hot?

"You were sleeping, huh?” he asked aloud, letting himself in to Heero’s apartment. There was a blanket on the floor in front of the couch, and a beeper and mobile phone on the coffee table. “Sorry," he supplied, trying for a tone that sounded close to sincerity.

Heero nudged the door closed and stalked past him toward the kitchenette. “You want?” he muttered briefly, slapping on an electric kettle.

"Yeah, sure." Trowa followed him, trailing a finger over the countertop. No dust. Maybe Duo was Heero’s maid too. "So what are we going to do about Chang?"

"We’ve already got Noin up our ass about it."

“That would be because he's guilty as fuck."

Heero took two mugs off a plastic tree, and a canister of instant coffee from under the sink. "This is not your most attractive side."

"I have an attractive side?" Trowa slouched against the countertop, propping his elbows behind him. There wasn’t really room for both of them in the cubby-hole passing for Heero’s kitchen, but he kicked out his legs anyway, until his shoes were practically on top of Heero’s feet. "I don't give a rat's ass if he is or if he isn't. I don't really care if he continues doing what he's been doing. But Duo does. And you do. So yeah, what are we going to do about it?"

They used to be more of a group. The Gundam Pilots. In photospreads together as The Gundam Pilots, at Quatre’s swearing-in as Vice Foreign Minister as The Gundam Pilots, everywhere they went with some invisible but official banner flying overhead. Trying to be the group everyone else thought they were. The whole “brothers in arms” feeling that had barely held them together long enough to defeat White Fang–

Heero poured the boiling water, and stirred in two spoonfuls of coffee grounds. He pushed a mug a half-foot in Trowa’s direction. He hopped up to the countertop and sat facing Trowa, pulling the other mug with him and cradling it against his chest. He didn’t answer.

So Trowa tasted the coffee. It was one side up from crap, but he couldn’t see finishing it. He opened Heero’s refrigerator and found a carton of half-and-half hiding in the back. He added enough that he wouldn’t necessarily taste the coffee. "He's not going to stop," he said, putting the carton back where he’d found it. "Not without help, anyway."

"So what 'help' were you thinking of offering?" Heero sipped from his mug. "Hypothetically."

Trowa constructed a casual shrug. He couldn’t tell what Heero was thinking. Heero had a way of looking at you like you didn’t exist. “One of us can turn him in,” he answered eventually. “Or stop him permanently." He tilted his mug at Heero. "This is not coffee."

Heero scratched idly at a thick white scar on his thigh. "Do you hate him?"

Somehow this wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d imagined it would. Maybe he should have waited for the morning. Or come earlier than three. Too bad Duo had had so much trouble getting to sleep. "No,” he said. “I don't hate anyone."

"Yeah."

Okay.... Trowa drank some of the not-coffee before remembering he didn’t like it. "Thing is,” he tried again, “I'm not going to let Duo kill himself trying to help Wufei. He's not neutral enough." He peered down into the murky whitish liquid. "We are."

Heero opened the cupboard beneath him with his toe, and let it fall shut again. "He's my partner."

Trowa looked up. After a beat, he agreed. "Yeah."

“And until– if– he tells me himself, I don't know that I can make decisions about his life."

Hard to know what anything meant with Heero. He’d been lucky to get words at all. But his gut told him Heero hadn’t accepted the premise. He’d just looked to the consequences of it, and decided it was going to be prettier to side with Wufei than explore his darker urges. "I can,” Trowa stressed, to be sure Heero understood.

Heero finished his coffee, and put the mug down. "If I want you to do something,” he said, “I'll call you."

It may have been a put-off, a pacifier, but he was satisfied with it. When the time came, Heero would be looking for the best resource available, and he’d know Trowa was ready and able. "Okay," he said. "I'd appreciate if you kept me in the loop on the case.” He paused. Thought of Duo’s probable– inevitable– reaction to getting that phone call. Decided that Duo didn’t get a vote this time. Added particularly, “Me. Not Duo."

Heero just looked at him with those hooded eyes. Or maybe he was just sleepy. Trowa suffered through the water-passing-for-coffee and set his cup in the sink when it was empty.

"Why didn't you ever join Preventers?"

Trowa laughed at that. "I'm the bad guy, remember?" Heero didn’t even crack a smile. “Come on,” he prodded. “It's a bad joke, but it is true.”

"You could have done it to be with Duo."

Well damn. "I don't lie to him," he pointed out.

"Why not?” Heero’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. He rubbed his scar again. “Don't you think he'd like to hear the right things sometimes?"

"If they were true, he'd love it.” Heero was still looking at him. What the hell was this obsession with Duo and Duo’s happiness and Duo’s sex life and Duo’s– and Trowa’s perceived inability to satisfy any of that. Sure. Heero needed to decide who he was in love with. And he needed to back the fuck off. And– Trowa hated it when Heero was right. Except that he wasn’t. Because it wasn’t like Trowa hadn’t had plenty of time to think about what life without Duo felt like, from the crust on the bathroom sink to the empty bed and days that didn’t have anything in them to mark them different from other days until he– until some freaking Wednesday, some middle-of-the-week day when he was completely blind-sided by missing the asswipe that he’d get in the car at midnight to buy that weird earth-friendly laundry detergent that Duo always used that made all his clothes smell like oranges and herbal tea. Like it didn’t piss him off more to have to go to a freaking health foods store to find the stuff. It wasn’t like Trowa was unwilling to find ways to make it work. To stop being the poster-boy for Insensitive Boyfriend and damn it, he was trying– well, he would try– he would try to try to do what they all damn thought he should do and then he was saying, “And when they’re true, he will."

Suddenly it was Heero laughing. Not even aloud, really, just a stilted exhale of air and the quivering of pecs under his vest.

"So, okay." Trowa put himself up straight. "Thanks for the almost-coffee."

Heero met his eyes. "Yeah,” he said. “Don't come here again."

That caught him. He wasn’t sure what it meant. Wasn’t sure he cared what it meant, except that if he knew, he’d know whether to be hurt or insulted. Or something. Probably. So it was his turn to laugh silently, and toss in the towel. "Yeah,” he repeated. “Okay."

He didn’t wait for Heero to show him out. He knew the way.

 

**

 

“Marc Addison for the defence, your Honour.” He bowed slightly from the waist, and took the chair she waved at. “Am I early, or has the District Attorney decided to drop all charges with an apology to my client?”

“We should be so lucky, Mr Addison.” Judge Padilla hid her mouth with a napkin as she pushed the last inch of her hotdog into her mouth. “He’s on his way.” She chewed quickly, and washed down with a large swallow iced tea. “Let’s keep this short, all right? I want to actually see my son this week.”

“How is Tomas?”

“He’s a teenager. He’d prefer not to see me. Or acknowledge our relation to each other.”

A swift knock on the door and it swung open, almost crashing into the wall. Padilla rolled her eyes at Addison as she wiped her mouth and pushed her plate away. “ADA George Lebreton,” she said. “So kind of you to join us.”

“Sorry to be late, your Honour.” Lebreton dropped his files as he tried to close the door behind him. Addison bent to pick up one that skidded to his foot, politely not looking at the contents as he stuffed them back in. Lebreton threw a harried look at him, and slid shame-faced into his seat. “Ready,” he added belatedly.

Padilla looked less than amused. “A word before we begin, gentlemen. There is no jury standing behind me. So there will be no grandstanding. There will be no well-crafted speeches and self-glorification. There will be efficacy.” She folded her hands on the desktop. “Begin.”

Addison popped the snaps on his briefcase and set the first motion on the desk. “Your Honour,” he said, “the case against Agent Maxwell is circumstantial at best, and it won’t even be that once we eliminate all the nasty little illegalities.” He bestowed a kindly smile on Lebreton, who drew in a breath to protest. Just as he began to speak, Addison continued, overriding him. “Judge, all the ADA has established is the state of mind of the arresting officers– who aren’t exactly models of restraint. They walk in on a fellow officer, who gave them a legitimate reason for being at a crime scene, and immediately arrest him? Then they held him in interrogation, threatened him verbally and physically, and after only two hours they had him arraigned with just preliminary ballistics to support them, and more significantly without obtaining a confession from my client.”

“They had a better reason for arresting Duo Maxwell than they did for letting him walk away,” Lebreton countered. “Maxwell is guilty of at least nine murders. I’m happy to add a tenth charge when we find the missing body from the Vasquez execution. Which fit the pattern of the previous homicides.” He flicked a glance at Addison, who gazed back blandly. “He was there alone without approval from any superior officer, and more importantly, Maxwell was a Gundam pilot. The very definition of a vigilante.”

“Too prejudicial,” Addison dismissed, reaching inside for another of his blue-wrapped motions. He waved it. “There’s no way you can allow the prosecution to introduce his war record, Judge. All it takes is one jury member who lost a family member during the war, and my client’s innocence or guilt in this matter is no longer a factor.”

Padilla pursed her lips, gazing between the two lawyers. “I’m inclined to agree with you,” she said at last, making a note on a pad of paper at her elbow. “Any mention of him being a Gundam pilot is out, and the same with the arresting officers.”

“Your Honour,” Lebreton protested. “Our case is predicated on demonstrating a pattern of behaviour going back years.”

“Then you’ll have to be clever.” Padilla folded her hands on her desktop. “It’s out, Mr Lebreton. Move on.”

“Next, then.” Addison set a third motion before the judge. “Motion to suppress Lieutenant Maxwell’s gun and the gunpowder residue test from evidence.”

Lebreton’s expression was dismayed as he straightened. “You can’t try to hide the gun just because you don’t like what it says,” he pointed out, rather stridently. “Maxwell’s gun had been discharged prior to the arrival of the arresting officers and his hands were covered in gunpowder. Considering the victim had been shot, I’d say that’s important.”

“Lieutenant Maxwell had discharged his weapon earlier that day during regular gun-range testing,” Addison explained. “Mandatory testing. I have plenty of paperwork to support it and a dozen witnesses.”

“You’ve got no legal case for suppressing the gun. It was lawfully obtained during the defendant’s arrest, your Honour.”

“Nice try, Counsel, but your motion is denied.” Padilla tossed the form onto the growing pile. “You’ll have the chance to bring in your witnesses, but the gun stays in.” She checked her watch. “This is time I can never get back, gentlemen. Whoever’s got anything else better put it on the table now.”

“I’m done, your Honour,” Addison said immediately.

“Anything from your office, Mr Lebreton?”

“No, your Honour.”

“Then I’ll see you for jury selection on Tuesday.” Padilla rose, pulling her blazer from the back of her chair. “Go away now.”

“Pleasure doing business with you both.” Addison closed his briefcase, and stood. “Judge.” He let himself out the door. He nodded to Padilla’s assistant, and leant over her. “Is there by any chance a young man standing outside?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.” She rested her hands on the keyboard of her computer. “Isn’t it bad form to invite your clients to the judge’s suite?”

“I like to think of it as– well, probably you’re right. But thanks for not throwing him off the property.” He smiled at her, and walked into the hallway. Sure enough, there was Maxwell, slouched on a bench and playing nervously with the tip of a long braid. Addison loosened his tie, and stepped up to him.

“You look exactly like your picture,” he said. “Hi. I’m your lawyer.”

 

**

 

Relena was early, but Quatre was there before her anyway, standing in Café Kirwan’s front courtyard– his black-suited bodyguards no more than six feet away, but giving a good impression of people not paying any attention to the nervously pacing Vice Foreign Minister. Relena paused behind a tall palm tree to make one more last-minute adjustment to her hair, flipping it back over her shoulder and then tugging her skirt down. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, and let it out slowly in a sigh. Then plastered an easy smile on her face, and stepped out to greet her date.

Quatre blossomed into a grin when she appeared, rather magically, from behind the tree. He reached for her hand as she walked to him, and brought it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. Relena coloured. "I love your manners, Quatre."

He produced a pale yellow rose corsage, prettily packaged in tissue and ribbon. “I should hope so," he answered. “It’s not easy.”

"Extra thank-yous, then,” Relena countered. He stepped closer, and she instinctively held her breath as he carefully pinned the corsage to the lapel of her blazer. She had to clear her throat when he finally stepped back. "I brought you something too, but I'm afraid it's not quite as personal." She showed him the bag she carried. “I had some time to shop before dinner.”

Quatre took the bag, and pulled out the attache case she’d bought him. He admired the cordovan leather. “Relena, it’s lovely.” He rubbed the brass locks, then popped them. She saw his face change as he looked at the file she’d left inside. She kept her smile in place as she told him,"Open it later."

He didn’t obey immediately, but he did shield the file with his body as he thumbed hurriedly through it. When he closed the case a few moments later, his smile was a little more fixed, but he nodded to let her know he understood. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s a very thoughtful gift.”

"I hope it proves useful." Part of her was just glad to have the file out of her hands. She’d passed on most of her contacts to Quatre when he’d taken the office after her, but there were a few who’d been more like friends, people with whom she shared personal loyalty. And the one who’d called her with the news about Duo Maxwell’s arrest had been explicit about the need for secrecy. At least Quatre had been a Vice Minister long enough to know how to handle the anonymous and delicate problems.

Abruptly Quatre offered his arm, and when she took it, guided her toward the restaurant doors. “You took advantage of the city, I see."

"I've been shopping all day. Do you like my suit?”

“It's a fantastic fit. I'd take a stab at designer, but I wouldn't know any of the big names if they landed a Gundam on my head."

"I'll have to go with you some time."

"I could definitely do worse." He grinned down at her as the maitre d silently escorted them to a private room.

Relena smiled back at him. “I've wanted to dress you for years."

“Who's going to get me naked first then?"

It wasn't as suave a remark as it was meant to be. Quatre’s ears went pink, and ahead of them, Relena saw an amused glance exchanged between the maitre d’ and the waitress who was coming to serve them.

"Answering that question could be dangerous, Quatre,” Relena said, taking the chair the waiter held for her. He draped a linen napkin over her lap and supplied a leather-bound menu. Quatre settled into his seat, rubbing the back of his neck as he accepted his menu. “Are you sure you want me to?" she added boldly.

He’d called her five years ago, out of the blue. Made charming small talk, made her laugh. And then told her very frankly that he’d been approached about running for her office. “I’ve explained that I don’t want to run against you,” he’d said.

It had taken her all of two seconds to realise she was grateful. “I can’t imagine a better man for the job,” she replied immediately. “Please don’t hold back on my account. Just be sure you win.”

She could remember the exact expression of surprise on his face. And the way he’d tried to hide it– that he wanted the position. And she’d known that she didn’t feel that way anymore, that the politics didn’t suit her and the lifestyle was exhausting. And laughed when he apologised. “I love the idea,” she’d told him warmly. “Is that odd?”

Quatre glanced sidelong at the waiter, who promptly made himself scarce. When they were alone, except for the guards who took up position just outside the door of their room, Quatre drew her attention to wine bucket standing beside their table. "I brought a champagne from home for us, actually,” he said, lifting the dripping bottle to show her.

Relena read the label. "Ohh, very good. What's the occasion?"

"Well... us."

"Us.” The man knew how to flatter her. “I think I like that," she admitted.

"Yes?" He shucked the foil seal and loosened the wire cage. The cork barely whispered as it popped out a moment later, and Relena smiled as she moved her glass within Quatre’s reach. He filled half her flute, and then his own. With his eyes on the second glass, he nodded slowly. "I... do too."

They toasted, and Relena sipped. It was light, crisp, with an aftertaste of rhubarb. “You're sounding unusually serious, you realise," she murmured.

"I thought I was an unusually serious person."

She smiled. "Sometimes, yes."

“Well, I thought maybe I could propose something. I mean, ask yo– talk to you about something." He had her full attention. This was different from their normal, light conversation. She nodded slightly to encourage him. Quatre played with the foil from the bottle, smoothing it out on the tablecloth. "We've gone out, what, well, enough to know each other fairly well, right?"

A sinking feeling took up residence in her stomach. She set down her flute, carefully arranging it at the correct distance from her plate. "I'd say so, yes." She'd ask if they were about to break up– if they'd ever formally coupled. It felt bad. It felt–

"I was thinking,” Quatre went on. “Well, I was thinking that we never really talked about what, I mean, what it is we're doing. Together. We never said, never committed."

Disappointing. Relena licked her lips, and answered. "No, I don't think we have. And if you don’t want to..." Her cheeks began to burn. "I'm so stupid. You began this conversation, didn’t you? Sometimes I'm such a girl."

"I find your being a girl to be pretty helpful, for the most part." Unwillingly, Relena laughed. Quatre’s eyes flew up to her face quickly, as his fingers jittered over the foil square. "I guess I should... so are you seeing anyone else?"

"No. I haven't been since you and I began dating." She said it as lightly as she could, but he only nodded, dropping his gaze back to his hands. She watched him fold the foil over a tear, then wrap it about the tip of his pointer finger. "Quatre,” she asked, surprised, “are you nervous?"

He twitched a little attempt at a smile at her. "Um, yes."

She pressed her hand kindly over his on the table between them. "Please don't be." His palm turned up to meet hers, a little uncomfortably damp. He really was overstrung.

“I'm not seeing anyone else either, of course,” he said suddenly. “I mean, there's no reason either of us would, but I wanted to be clear about that." He linked their fingers, squeezing hard. "I would like to ask you if you'd like it to be a serious relationship."

All her fears evaporated in a flash, and she actually laughed giddily. "Yes, I would. Very much."

Quatre released a huge breath. "Really?” He scrabbled to hold her hand more tightly. “I mean– that fast?"

"I've thought about you quite a lot, Quatre."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Silly. You're perfect for me." She stroked his hand. "You thought otherwise?"

“It crossed my mind that you might not care much, one way or the other."

"Maybe I need to be more demonstrative." Her heart beat faster as she leant across the table toward him. She had to stand to do it, but once he caught on he jumped to his feet, and somehow their lips brushed. She peeked long enough to notice that his eyes were closed, and then he was touching her hair, his fingers soft on the shell of her ear.

They were both red when they sought their seats again. "You must think I'm very forward," Relena half-apologised.

"Not since I just asked you to go steady." Quatre grinned crookedly. "Forward is definitely better."

"Go steady." She laughed. "You're awfully cute, Quatre."

"Was that a factor in the 'yes'?"

She laughed again, and reached for the champagne to distract herself. "Only a little," she retorted loftily. The cute, and the handsome, and the good manners, and– oh– the way he was looking at her right now, with that glint of secret delight and– like she was the only woman in the world. She’d never felt this heady before. Never known men really could look at you like that.

"So... this may be fast, too, but are– would– want to go away somewhere soon?"

"I– maybe. Yes.” She pondered him. “Where were you thinking?"

"I was thinking maybe you'd like to come to L4? Meet my sisters, in small unalarming numbers."

Her heart hadn’t done this since she was fifteen. And now her stomach was joining in the flutters. "This sounds more serious than just going steady."

"Is... that bad?"

"It's very good." He silently implored her to take his hand again, and she obliged. "I just like to know what I'm agreeing to," she clarified.

"It wouldn't be anything improper. But it would be a real holiday. The Senate is out of session next month, and usually my family get together for the holidays."

His family. He was taking her home to meet his family. She opened her mouth to agree, but her tongue and her brain weren’t operating at the same speed. She managed just an awkward sound before the waiter finally reappeared, breaking in silently to bring them a plate of cheese and chutney. They both sat back, automatically preserving the faces they were so used to presenting to the public. The waiter was gone within moments, however, without speaking even a word. Clearly, he’d realised he was interrupting something, but Relena had to admire how smoothly he’d done it.

Quatre seemed to have recovered his poise by the time they were alone again. "Well, I figure we get a grace period of at least a month before the paparazzi find us out,” he offered. “Maybe we should take advantage?"

Relena smiled ruefully. "See the man in the horrible tan suit peeking through the curtains?"

Quatre swivelled to stare out the window, dismayed. Their stalker scrambled away, tripping over himself while they watched. "Oh, no," Quatre sighed.

There was a stir at their doorway as Quatre’s bodyguards caught on to the problem, and two split off to deal with it. Oh, she was glad to be rid of that necessity. "Do you mind?" she asked tentatively.

“I'm in the wrong lifetime if I do." He shrugged as he turned back to her. "They'll have us married secretly within a week. Three at the outside.”

"It could be worse.” Relena waited for him to look at her. “I think we should do it," she said.

His eyes went wide. "Get married?"

Bugger. Embarrassment burned through her as she grabbed for her champagne. She got too big a gulp, and coughed while she struggled to swallow.

Quatre turned red. "I mean–"

"Go to L4,” she corrected in a small voice.

“Right. Yes."

The next swallow went down only a little more easily. “Sorry,” she murmured, staring down at her plate. “That had to be uncomfortable."

“Uh– maybe just a little sooner than I thought."

She didn’t register that one until she was brushing her teeth for bed that night, and almost choked on her toothpaste.

 

**

 

Heero crouched, pulling a pen from his pocket to nudge aside the corpse’s stained jacket lapel. The wallet was still in its pocket. It came free when he propped it, dropping to the ground. He flipped it open.

“Credit cards, cash still here,” he said. “ID.”

The medical examiner sat back on her heels and began peeling off her plastic gloves. “Blunt force trauma to the skull. There’s a triangular pattern to the break– I’d say something with a corner. Something quite large. And it reached brain matter on the first splat.” She pointed to the chest. “Followed by four wholly unnecessary shots to the chest and abdomen. He was probably already dead when he was shot.”

Heero pulled out his mobile phone and hit the speed-dial for his partner. It was still early in the morning, and he hadn’t slept after Trowa had made his unexpected visit. Somehow, he didn’t think Wufei had done much better, though. He wasn’t surprised when Wufei answered after only a single ring.

"It's me," Heero said. He rose to his feet, shading his eyes to watch the investigation team scour the yard. "We've got another body.”

When Wufei didn’t answer for many seconds, Heero wondered if he’d waked his partner after all. Just before he decided to speak again, Wufei suddenly asked, _"Is there an ID on it?”_

Heero gestured for the CI tech currently bagging the wallet to hand it over. He turned it to the light, and read the driver’s license in the front slip. "Becker, Craig," he reported.

There was slight noise, a rustle of some sort. _"I know that name,”_ Wufei said. _“Don't I?"_

It had been in Duo’s files about Vasquez. "Rival gang head,” Heero supplied briefly. “And we've got slugs that look like a match from the Vasquez case."

“We’ve got the gun there, too,” the tech interrupted. He held up another bag. “Found it about five yards that way.” He pointed to another of the tall mountains of garbage they stood on in the dump, where two more jacketed techs were standing.

The gun. Which meant the gun used to shoot Vasquez, the gun that had been missing from the scene. Heero ran his tongue over dry teeth. "You copy?" he asked his partner.

 _“Yes, I heard.”_ He listened to the static-shot sound of Wufei’s harsh exhale. _“Get that piece to the lab right away. I'll meet you– where are you anyway?"_

“The landfill at Cline and Forest,” he answered. He tossed the bagged wallet back to the tech, and began to climb down the trash hill. When he was out of earshot of the others at the scene, he added softly, “Sorry. I know you could use a day off."

_"We don't get days off, remember?”_

Wufei said it lightly, but Heero didn’t know if he ought to believe it. IAB had kept Wufei for hours longer than they’d kept Heero, and Wufei had been adamant that he wasn’t going to discuss it after.

 _“I'm on my way,"_ Wufei finished abruptly. He hung up a moment later. Heero put away his phone, fingering the antenna where it stuck out of his pocket. No, no reason for either of them to welcome this. Their luck had been all bad so far.

The tech had caught up to him and was passing buy with a box full of their collective evidence. Heero stopped him, and said, "The handle's clean? Look for prints inside the barrel. Sometimes they forget to wipe it there."

“Sometimes,” the tech repeated sceptically. “The stupid ones. Not the career criminals. Not the serial killers.”

And not the cops. Heero said, “Just check.”

“Agent Yuy?”

He turned toward the hill where they’d found the gun, using a bicycle seat and a bag of rotting food as foot-holds as he climbed. “Something else?”

“We’ve got a pair of shoes.” A younger agent he vaguely recognised was lifting them from beneath soggy cardboard remains. Heero bent to look, and she showed him the rust-coloured stains in the tread. “Definitely blood,” she confirmed.

They hadn’t been able to account for some anomalous prints at the Vasquez scene. Duo’s prints they’d eliminated. “Random shoes don’t count for much unless we get the owner,” he muttered.

She shrugged. “Feet sweat and shed skin. If our perp was rushed or clumsy, we’ll find any presents he left behind.”

Wufei owned a pair of hiking shoes like those. They’d bought them together before a vacation several years ago. No– no, he’d been there when Wufei’d torn the sole out of the left, ripped the canvas. They were long thrown away. Anyone could buy hiking boots.

Wufei wouldn’t be that sloppy.

He dug his fingers hard into his palm. I’m not going to do this, he promised himself. I’m not going to start suspecting him. "There’s crud all over them,” he pointed out.

“Contaminated they may be, but I never turn down evidence.” The other agent stood, and Heero followed suit, holding the bag she pushed on him so she could drop the soes inside, making sure the wet, dragging laces made it in before she sealed it. “I’ll get these down to the DNA labs.”

“No, I’ll take them. I’m headed up there to check on their progress anyway.” She raised her eyebrows, but handed over the bag. Heero nodded his thanks, and slipped down the garbage. He crossed the yard to his car, and opened the trunk. He put the boots in the inner circle of his spare tyre, and stood looking down at them.

It didn’t take as long as it should have. He took off his jacket, and draped it over the tyre, hiding the boots from view. There was no rush. If they didn’t make it to the labs, no-one would know. After all, if Duo wasn’t guilty, it didn’t really matter if the shoes didn't make it to his trial.

And Trowa thought Heero couldn’t think in shades of grey.


	5. Five

Addison stood and came around his table, buttoning his jacket as he walked the way lawyers on television always did. “Agent Maxwell,” he said. “The prosecution has argued that the ten murders you have been accused of committing are all linked by the fact of the victims being criminals under investigation by various departments of the Preventer Corps. But only two of these criminals were within the jurisdiction of your department, Narcotics?”

Duo nodded. “Yes, sir.” His microphone fuzzed a little, and Duo’s hand shot up to adjust it. “Father Jose Benito and Rene Vasquez,” he finished weakly.

“And you had a connection to both cases?”

“I was on the team investigating Vasquez’s organisation, but I only became involved with the Benito case after it reached Homicide.”

“Meaning after he was killed.” Addison lifted several poster-sized cards from his table onto an easel and uncovered the first, revealing a picture of the burnt car where Benito had been found. “Why were the Preventers called to this case at all? Shouldn’t this have been a case for the local police?”

“Benito had already been accused of child molestation, abuse, trafficking, and kidnapping when he was murdered.” Duo shifted on his seat. “The Preventers caught the case because of the nature of the homicide. Any case which might involve acts of terrorism is in the purview of the Corps. I was asked to join the investigation when agents on the scene discovered the remains of an amateur methamphetamines laboratory in the trunk of the car where Benito’s body was found.”

“They like him.”

Trowa turned from the one-way window. The mock-trial going on in the faux court-room next door had been going for almost five hours, and they were on their third run. Trowa had watched all three from this spot in the offices of Strawn and Virbach Legal. He thought he’d met all the lawyers on Duo’s case by now, but the woman who joined him at the window was new to him. Older, the kind of thin that came with obsessive dieting, a smart black suit that probably cost a month’s salary and slick little palm unit that people carried when they wanted to look important. She put out a hand, and Trowa took it as briefly as possible. “Ruth Kiplis,” she introduced herself briefly. “I’m one of the partners of the firm.” She nodded at the window. “I’ve been working trial prep for sixteen years,” she told him. “The mock jury likes Maxwell. Clean, good-looking man, radiating honesty and sincerity. The real jury will like him, too.”

Trowa favoured her with the look he reserved for idiots too dangerous to go on breathing. He said, “You're a shitty liar."

"They will like him. They'll want to believe him." She pointed to a woman in the front row. Trowa watched a strand of ginger hair fall out of her bun as she moved, then followed her finger to the fat lady crammed into too-small chair in the mock-trial room. "She looks at him and sees her son,” the lawyer told him. “The man to her left, he sees the good cop who makes sure the schools are protected."

"But?"

Kiplis sighed. "But he looks like he's lying."

"But he's not lying."

"He keeps rubbing his hands. He can't focus his eyes in one place.” She glanced at Trowa. “He looks nervous."

"He's got an alibi."

"He needs ten."

"Maybe they'll materialise.” Duo was fingering the knot of his tie. He hated wearing ties. He needed to pull himself the fuck together. Trowa looked back at the lawyer, trying to concentrate on her. “Have you asked him?"

"He's had a little trouble remembering all of them." Kiplis tapped her palm unit against her collarbone. Trowa wondered if it was supposed to draw attention to her breasts, and then caught himself looking. "It's possible we'll want you to testify you were with him,” she continued. “Those times that you were with him, obviously."

"I'm sure I can come up with something convincing."

Kiplis put up a pregnant pause at that. She didn’t like his tone or what he’d said, he guessed; maybe she just didn’t like him. She said, "We'll run your testimony tomorrow, if you have time. We want to see whether it's better to have you up there as the boyfriend, or worse."

"Worse? How is it worse?"

"In trials where the defendant’s sex life comes into play, we lose thirty-two percent."

“Found?” Addison prompted Duo. “Then it wasn’t Benito’s car?”

“No, sir. Father Benito drove a Volvo. This was an old Chevy, probably abandoned.” Duo paused to sip from his water glass, his face uncomfortable. All the jurors had score cards in front of them, and three of them started marking while Duo fidgeted. It made Trowa tense just watching. Duo continued, his voice a little hoarse. “As far as we could tell, Benito had no connection to any drug suppliers or buyers. The meth lab could’ve been in the boot of the car for six months before it burned with Benito.”

“And when you determined this, you returned the case to Homicide?”

“Yes.”

“To your knowledge, was Father Benito’s murder ever solved?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

"He's not out at work," Trowa said. He faced the woman. "I don't care if you fucking make me look like the killer. Don't screw up his reputation. It would kill his career as fast as a conviction.”

"We're not in the business of spinning evidence,” she retorted seriously. “Duo's got plenty on his side. He's innocent, and he'll look it." She gestured to the window, and the mock trial. "That's why we practise. We run a good show here, and our guys walk out tall."

She didn’t get it, Trowa knew. And it wouldn’t matter to her anyway if Duo caught hell at work because he’d been outed at his own trial. The Preventers had protected Duo for a few years, back when they were still young enough to be recognised occasionally as colonists, as Gundam Pilots. Duo’d made an effort to lose his accent– Trowa still heard it, especially on the cusses, but for most Duo sounded like a California native these days. Because it was important to Duo, to always move on, to always have it together, to not have to defend himself against people who didn’t know, hadn’t fought, hadn’t had the life that Duo had had in the worst of the colonies. Survivor’s guilt, and a big wonky case of it, but that was Duo all over, making like the gaping hole over his heart was just a flipping papercut.

“Thank you.” Addison set down the picture of the car and replaced it with one of a dim apartment. There was a big splotch of blood on the wall in the photo. “Do you recognise this, Agent?”

Duo nodded. “That’s Vasquez’s apartment. The crime scene.”

“You said you were with the team investigating Vasquez. How many agents are on that team?”

“It varies. We all have a number of open cases. I was investigating the deaths of two confidential informants in 208. I believed that Vasquez may have ordered their murder. But that was part of a greater case that implicates many high-level associates of various gangs that crosses international boundaries.”

“It sounds complex.”

Duo shrugged awkwardly. “Open cases in Narcotics usually run for two to five years, and we work a lot with other departments. A lot of cases start and end with drugs.”

“Why did you go to Rene Vasquez’s apartment that night?”

“I received a call from someone who sometimes passed me information. He said something big was going to happen that night at Vasquez’s. So I went there.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t have a partner, and I didn’t have a lot of time. My informant made it sound urgent.”

Trowa took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed the back of his neck. He was getting a headache, and the slightly metallic background to the speakers wasn’t helping. "Just tell me what time to be there," he told Kiplis.

She touched the stylus to the face of her palm pilot, and it beeped. Her eyes roved as she read the screen, and then she looked up. "Can you be here at ten?"

"Sure."

"All right." She smiled professionally– how could women do that? "Do you own a suit?"

Yeah, including the one Duo was wearing at present. They’d taped the cuffs of the pants up that morning in the car. "Several,” Trowa said. “Tell me what you want."

Kiplis took his shoulders lightly, and Trowa let her side-step him over to the bright circle of lamplight on the nearest desk. She looked him over so closely that Trowa was tempted to cross his eyes at her, or do something lewd, just to shake her attitude a little. It took a certain amount of restraint to stop himself once the idea occurred.

"Something in a light grey,” she decided finally. “Medium blue shirt. And a solid tie."

"Shoes?" He wasn’t quite sarcastic. That took restraint, too. He was going to use his weekly supply on this woman.

Who wasn’t amused. She waited a moment before answering, and her tone was deliberately even. "Black, and a low heel. You're a little tall."

"I can handle that." Trowa looked back into the mock trial room. Addison had up a blown-up blueprint of Vasquez’s apartment, and Duo was saying something about procedure on entering a crime scene. Trowa rubbed the back of his neck again. "He went to some kind of conference in November last year,” he said suddenly, like he’d just remembered. He looked back at her, catching her eyes. “If that helps. I was supposed to go with him, but I couldn't at the last minute."

Kiplis’s eyebrows went up a half-inch. But she picked up a pad of paper from the desk they stood at, and she wrote it down. "It might help,” she acknowledged. “Is there any proof? Receipts, programmes, ticket stubs?"

Trowa lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "There's usually all kinds of documentation. I bet his supervisor even signed off on it."

"Duo didn't mention it." She added a note. "We'll track it down. Thanks."

"Yeah, sure."

He couldn’t tell if she’d bought it. He should have timed it better, dropped it more casually. Well, if it was too convenient, he might as well be blunt. He said, "If you prove it was impossible for him to have done even one or two of the murders, the whole case should come down like a house of cards. Don't you think?"

Kiplis met his eyes. "I think you should let us worry about the trial, and you just worry about Duo. That's a nice division of labour, don't you agree?"

A little bitchy. He could appreciate that. "Only if I think you're doing it right," he returned.

"Between all of us at the firm, we have two hundred and nineteen years of trial experience. We're very good, Trowa. We're excellent."

And she was probably already plotting to have some junior partner babysit him for the trial. "I know Quatre doesn't hire hacks,” he admitted, or made it sound like he was admitting. “Yeah."

She sat on the edge of the desk, leaning toward him. It created an air of confidentiality, of friendliness, that was about as real as the mock trial going on next door. Trowa inhaled the subtle smell of her perfume and wondered whether her hair colour was natural. Her fingers came down over his wrist, and Trowa let her touch him. It was a good act, probably honed over many years, the perfect combination of femininity and authority, matronly and experienced. It almost made him enjoy being played.

"Reasonable doubt is not the best defence,” she explained. “It's the defence you choose if you can't make it stick on someone else. We will show his alibis. We'll show his good character and his history in the Preventers. We'll show that he was doing his job, tracking the real killer, and we'll show that the DA has a vendetta for pursuing a weak case against a good man. If we start pointing fingers at other people, if we start talking about how many other suspects there could be, we'll look desperate. The jury will think of that on their own, and it'll be better coming from them than it could ever be coming from us." She smiled. "That's the plan of attack."

Trowa leaned in, too. "So everybody wins except the DA and the cops who rushed to arrest him."

"That's the general idea."

Trowa plopped his butt on the desk, pushing a plastic in-box out of the way. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you."

Kiplis put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. "I want you to wear a grey suit and show up at ten. We'll practice your testimony together, and then we'll run it by our jury there. We'll treat you to a good lunch."

"Ooh, and ice cream too?"

Her smile stayed natural. She was, Trowa admitted, good. She slid off the desk and waved her pad and palm unit. "I'll go get started on this,” she told him. “I think Duo's just about ready for a break, anyway.”

"Mind if I wait for him?"

"Sure. Pick a chair."

It didn’t take long. The mock jury left first, handing over their score cards to Addison as they filed out. Duo slumped down in his chair, laying his head on his arms in exhaustion. Addison stepped over to rub Duo’s shoulder. And that was when Trowa decided chairs were for dummies whose boyfriends were securely attached. That well-paid bottom-dweller had no business making that nice to Duo– they were practically strangers– and what was with Duo not ripping the asshole’s arm right out of his damn shoulder? Well, fuck. Trowa took the door that led him into the trial room. And made enough noise that both men were looking when he got there. He smiled at Duo, only Duo, and went to sit next to him.

“Hey,” he said. “You look hungry. Let’s get out of here.”

 

**

 

Trowa turned off his mobile, and slipped it into his back pocket. “He said he’s off the highway,” he reported to Duo. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Good.” Duo shook a handful of basil into Trowa’s food processor, and began to drizzle olive oil in after it. Which made Trowa wonder when he’d got olive oil. Or basil. Or a food processor.

No, the food processor was from before. It had just been in a box under the sink with the juicer and other shit Trowa never used.

“Don’t say anything,” he said abruptly. “I know. Be nice to him.”

Duo looked back over his shoulder, his thumb coming off the button so that the processor slowed and stopped. “Huh?”

“Do we even have linen napkins?”

Duo turned. “Did you stick your finger in the socket again?”

“I’ll go wait for him.”

Duo reached out, and grabbed Trowa’s hand. “Don’t freak out. He already likes you. Here, finish the pesto for me. I’m gonna get dressed.”

Trowa obeyed, taking over the button-pressing and watching the green stuff turn into paste in the plastic bowl. It didn’t look all that appetizing, but it smelled nice enough. Trowa poked a finger in to taste it just as the door buzzer went off. “He’s here,” Trowa called back to Duo, licking his hand clean and heading for the front door.

Quatre's face transformed into a bright smile when he opened the door. "Hello, Trowa," he said warmly.

Trowa stared at Quatre’s hand, clasped tightly around someone else’s. "Hi, Quatre." He looked up, and added flatly, "And guest."

Relena Peacecraft’s smile wasn’t quite as large as Quatre’s. “Hello,” she answered courteously. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

"Yeah,” Trowa said. He released the door and turned his back on them. “Come on in. Duo's getting ready."

“He’s right here,” Duo said, emerging from their bedroom. He got Relena to let go of Quatre’s hand long enough to pull her off her feet into a hug. “Now this is a nice surprise,” he added into her hair.

Relena clung a little too hard. "I'm sorry this is happening to you," she said. Trowa nudged the door shut with his foot. Quatre was looking at him, so Trowa managed a little smile. He still had that little cowlick, just a little whiter than the rest of his hair.

Duo set Relena back on her pumps and kissed her cheek. "Thanks for your support,” he said diplomatically. “You look fabulous, by the way."

She beamed at him, and twirled her skirt girlishly. “Why, thank you. I just bought this."

Trowa rolled his eyes, but Quatre and Duo were grinning like idiots at her little act. "God, you have hot legs," Duo told her.

Quatre had taken her hand again. Was looking at her, with this stupid moony thing happening in his eyes. “You look all right, considering,” he told Duo. “Trowa must be taking good care of you."

Trowa was feeling peeved, was what he was. He said, "So, are you and Relena fucking or something now?" Duo’s head whipped about, and Quatre’s face went blank with shock. "Funny,” Trowa said, dropping down on his couch. “I always thought you were gay."

"Dude, shut up," Duo snapped.

Quatre turned sunburnt-red from hairline to collar. "Excuse me?" he stammered.

And then Relena moved. She circled her little hands around Quatre’s arm, smiling up at him. "Quatre,” she asked innocently, “am I your beard?"

The man looked like he could sink through the floor in humiliation. "No! No, of course you're not."

Score one for you, Trowa thought silently. Relena’s gaze was smack on Quatre, like they were the only two people in the room, like she hadn’t just won that round with a sniper attack. He’d always wondered how much steel was hiding under that designer wardrobe. "Touche, princess," he admitted. He shrugged, and propped his boots on the coffee table next to the tray of nuts and crap Duo had put there. "Sorry, Quat. Relena. I'm being an ass." He smiled.

"Yes, you are," Quatre said. The red had fallen out of his face and he looked pale now except for two splotches on his cheeks. God, was he always going to look fifteen when he was upset?

Duo made a grab for Relena, too, and got a hand on Quatre’s shoulder by stepping physically in front of Trowa. "You joining us for lunch, Relena?” he asked. “We can catch up."

"Thank you. I'd love that." Relena let herself be separated from Quatre. “I thought I smelled fresh basil.” She turned back to artfully accept a kiss from Quatre, and then followed Duo into the kitchen.

She was good. Trowa picked up some kind of pineapple thing on a toothpick off Duo’s tray, and stuck it between his teeth. Still a skank, but she knew how to play hard.

“You gonna yell at me?" he asked Quatre.

“What was that, Trowa?"

"I don't know. Apparently you don't like my sense of humour."

Quatre stripped off his coat and dropped it onto the recliner. There was a sheen of sweat on his neck. "You weren't joking."

"Yeah, Quatre. I was.” He went for another of the pineapple things, and decided the white dip stuff was for that. “Relax, will you?"

"No, stop it. Just stop." Quatre’s voice was low, but furious. He pushed Trowa’s feet off the table. "I know you better than that. But even for you, that was low."

"Okay, fine. Why's she here?" Cause, yeah, like Relena flipping Peacecraft had ever been part of them. At the very best she’d been a distraction, even a danger, like flying her damn plane to Siberia to interrupt the duel between Zechs and Heero. She wasn’t a pilot, she wasn’t even someone’s girlfriend–

"Because we're together."

"Together," he repeated.

"Yes. Together." Quatre gathered himself the way he did before he went on camera, the public face, the brave front. "I want to marry her," he said softly.

He actually laughed at that. “You're gay,” he retorted, pushing to his feet. “I should know."

"No,” Quatre exclaimed. “No, Trowa, I'm not."

"Yeah?” Trowa went to his desk and pulled out his diary, flipping ostentatiously through the pages and grabbing a pen. “Since when? Maybe I missed the memo."

Quatre grabbed the diary out his hand and threw it to the floor. "Since always."

They were standing only inches apart. Trowa eliminated even that distance by curling his hand about the back of Quatre’s neck. Quatre stumbled into his chest, and a second later, Trowa mashed their mouths together as viciously as he could. He caught Quatre’s arm by the biceps when it raised to hit him, forcing Quatre back against the desk to hold him in place.

Then Quatre ducked his shoulder and thrust with his hip, and Trowa found himself bent over the desk with his arm twisted behind his back. He dropped his forehead to a spill of pens and breathed carefully around the strain.

Quatre exhaled shakily, and let him go. “You didn’t have to do that.”

"You didn't have to fuck me when we were fifteen,” Trowa said. He straightened and turned, pulling his shirt back into place and cracking his wrist. “Or am I misremembering that, too?" Quatre wiped his mouth. His hand shook just a little, and Trowa swallowed hard. "Sorry,” he murmured. “I never wanted to hurt you."

He could tell that Quatre didn’t believe him. It was all there in how tightly he was holding himself, in the unconscious way he wiped his mouth again where they’d kissed. “Hey,” he whispered. He touched Quatre, gently this time, almost as he would have pet a wounded animal. "I never wanted to hurt you." Quatre’s eyes came up to his. So blue, like the rim of ozone over the earth.

"Maybe,” Quatre said. He blinked slowly, and looked down. “But it doesn’t stop you from being stupid. Duo's standing right in the kitchen there, even if you can't bring yourself to care about me and Relena."

Trowa closed his eyes, and waited. Waited long enough to not feel so pressured, waited long enough to remember that Quatre was right, waited long enough to remember that he was sorry. When he spoke again, he did it genuinely. “It just took me off-guard,” he explained quietly. “You didn't say anything about bringing Relena along."

Quatre hesitated. "I'm sorry. I guess I wanted it to be a surprise."

"I'm happy for you."

Small smile that was just a little bitter, and it didn’t suit him. "Are you really?"

Trowa nodded. "I really am." He licked his lips, and picked up a pen to fidget with. "She'd be stupid to say no." Clicked it on, and off, on off.

“I could love her. She lets me in, Trowa. She makes room for me."

"Yeah. That's rare." He was properly admonished now, and wished he could rewind and give Quatre directions to the mall instead of his house. "You'll be good together."

And if they were still fifteen, Quatre would have reached for his hand, would have given him one of those easy forgiving embraces that had used to come so naturally, would have laughed the– bright laugh with the shining eyes thing, but they weren’t fifteen. And the Quatre standing in front of him all grown up and rescuing the princess looked at him upset and unsure and said in a little voice, "I want you to approve."

God. Not a little request. He’d been confused for a while now, but this was just icing. "Why, Quatre?” he asked. “Why's that so important?"

"Because you're my friend."

"Yeah, I'm your friend. A shitty friend, but you keep me anyway." He dredged up a smile from somewhere, and brushed his fingers over Quatre’s arm. "I approve."

And hoped to fuck he didn’t have to be the best man.

Quatre was the one to step away. He went back to the couch, but he didn’t sit. He faced Trowa, or at least turned in his direction, and asked, "So, are you back with Duo?"

"Hell if I know." Then, in an uncharacteristic burst of honesty, he admitted, "Yeah."

"That's good.” Quatre smiled, bolstered enough that it didn’t look horribly forced. “You were always better together than not."

"Yeah." That was certainly true.

"It'll help if you tell him that."

"Yeah, probably."

"Well... ” Quatre cleared his throat, and picked up a briefcase Trowa hadn’t even noticed him bringing in. “I brought something for you. This was intended to be a gift, but now I'm not entirely sure you don't already know what's in it." He drew a folder from it, and held it out at arm’s length. Trowa left his position at the desk, took it and resumed his seat on the couch. Quatre sat too– on the table, not the couch– but near enough. Trowa opened the folder, and looked down at faxed copies of the reports Heero and Wufei had showed him weeks ago. He flipped past those, and saw more copies– pages out of schedules, post-its with Duo’s handwriting, receipts from restaurants. A conference handbook and a name tag.

“Do the lawyers have this?” he asked.

"Yes." Quatre picked up a pineapple piece, too, but he didn’t eat it. "I did what you wanted me to do. I passed it on."

Trowa checked the rest of the folder, and closed it. "Thanks."

"When did you do it? I have to admit, you can move awfully fast."

Trowa touched the side of his nose. "Day after he called."

Quatre sighed, and put back the pineapple. "So let me see. First, you must have called someone inside the Preventers. Someone who knew what murders they were going to charge with. And then you must have searched Duo's flat– I could have sworn he made you give back your key– found date books, calendars, reconstructed his movements for two whole years. Not a mean feat, considering you were separated for more than one of those. And then you had to plant everything. How long did it take?"

Trowa smiled a deprecating smile, though Quatre already knew and was only making a point. "I don't sleep much," he said. He bumped Quatre’s knee with his. "Look, I keep track of people. You. Him. Friends. It wasn't hard, just expensive."

"Oh, well, that makes me feel better."

It ought to. Trowa had made a lot of uh-ohs disappear in ten years. "Glad to hear it,” he said. “Just make sure the legal team has it. They don't even need to believe in it as long as they use it effectively."

"You really don't get it,” Quatre said. “Everything that he's going through right in front of you, and you still think that he wants you to run about behind his back building his freedom on lies."

"He's under suspicion based on lies,” Trowa retorted. “His lies, because he'd rather go to hell than let... someone else he loves go there."

He’d let that hang on purpose, and Quatre did his part by playing along. "You think you know who it is."

"Yeah."

Quatre waited, impatiently. "And?"

"And I'm deciding." Quatre was getting frustrated. He looked away, running nervous fingers through his hair. And that was when Trowa realised. He leant forward, and said, "Tell me you don't know too." Quatre did. Or at least suspected. Trowa was sure of it. "Tell me you don't have alibis for the other murders already in progress,” he pressed. “And not just for Duo."

Quatre’s face had gone still. He said, "Unlike you, I don't feel the need to show off."

"I'm not showing off. I'm getting the fucking job done, Quatre. Something you didn't always shrink from either."

"I resent that. This is about you and your massive trust issues. I can't blame you for not trusting the legal system, but trusting us? Trusting Duo?"

He kept his voice down, though Quatre’s was starting to rise again. "He said he was innocent and hell no, I don't trust the legal system. I've got reason. We all do. Duo wanted a way out that didn't implicate anyone. He knew better than to ask you because your integrity would get in the way. So maybe instead of giving me a guilt trip about it, you should start thinking about what we're going to do when they realise they have the wrong pilot."

Quatre rode right over his last words. "Shut up," he commanded, reaching for Trowa’s knee and squeezing hard. "Just shut up. We do not do this. We do not do this to each other."

"Yeah, Quatre,” he retaliated. “We do."

And when he said that, he was remembering shooting Deathscythe down. Quatre shooting him down. Heero knocking Duo out and leaving him behind. Wufei joining the Barton Rebellion without telling anyone. Really, the only one of them who’d never betrayed the others was Duo.

Well, shit howdy.

They must have been silent for too long, because Duo poked his head out of the kitchen. "You two done?" he asked softly.

Trowa looked at him, and found a little smile. Duo was holding a kitchen knife at mock-ready, and he brandished it playfully. "Yeah,” Trowa answered. “I said sorry, and he forgave me. You'd be proud, Dad."

"Good.” Relena came out from behind Duo, and Duo slung an arm over her shoulders as he grinned at Trowa. “You know I hate having to spank you."

Trowa rose, and tucked Quatre’s folder into a drawer at his desk. "Ah, fuck,” he complained. “I always liked that part."

Relena laughed. "You two."

Quatre rose as well, and Relena came to him, taking his hand again. "The fun part is trying to figure out which part's serious and which is... less serious," he explained.

"Is there a serious part?" she asked, her eyes going to Trowa.

"Only on Thursdays," he told her.

 

**

 

Duo turned down the duvet, and pulled his shirt off over his head. “Quite a stunt you pulled today,” he said casually.

Trowa shucked his jeans, and when Duo pointed to the hamper, made the trip to put them in it. Duo looked tired. All the weird trial preparation every day, testifying over and over to new crowds of people and getting judged on everything from the length of his hair to the shoes on his feet. And yeah, lunch hadn’t been exactly a relaxing get-together between old friends. But Trowa hadn’t had his ass handed to him yet, and this late at night, he didn’t think he was in much danger of it.

It was starting to feel comfortable again. Of course that had been the tone of their relationship pretty much from the get-go. Only comfortable was– starting to feel pale and bland and he couldn’t really put his finger on why. Before, it was always enough to be not uncomfortable.

He lay down first, while Duo flossed in front of the mirror. “So I don’t get to be surprised?” he asked, plumping the pillow behind his head. “You can’t tell me you saw that coming.”

Duo dropped the used floss into the trash bin, and turned off the light. “Sure I did,” he answered. The mattress dipped as he sat on his side of the bed. “It’s not like he dates around.”

“Yeah. Well.” He found Duo’s bare arm, and stroked his cool skin. “He's not the slightest bit in love with me any more now, is he?"

Duo said sourly, "And I bet you cut your leg off when your toe hurts, too."

"I got the job done.” Duo lay facing him, and Trowa transferred his hand to Duo’s bare stomach, tracing a circle around his navel. “He's probably looking at her right now and asking himself what he could ever have wanted from me." Because Quatre would always have wondered, otherwise.

“I think he started asking himself that a long time ago. Sorry to bust this impressive swelling of ego, but the loss of you is not that earth-shaking."

He’d always wonder no matter what. Because not being in love was not the same as never having been in love.

"Yeah, okay.” Trowa wondered if Duo was tired enough to want sex. They’d gone a few days without, days where Duo had had the energy to resist on principle. “You're right, and I'm a vain asshole."

“Truer words were never spoken."

Duo took his fingers when they drifted near his mouth. Trowa closed his eyes when Duo’s tongue flicked over them. "That's settled then," he murmured.

"You're so full of it.” Duo’s breath was moist and just warm enough against his palm. “You insinuated to the man's girlfriend that you slept with him and therefore he was never gonna love her. And all this was altruistic? Cause you're such a great friend."

"I didn't imply we'd slept together, only that I thought he was gay."

"I'm sure that will be soothing when their marriage is rocky because she can never quite convince herself that he really wants to be with her."

He pulled, and Duo rolled on top of him, tickling his toes against Trowa’s calves and resting on his elbows. Trowa tugged on Duo’s fringe. "Okay, so that was shitty of me, but I apologised to Quatre, and Relena's not stupid. She knows I'm a prick and have always been a prick, and she probably won't believe a thing I said after the wedding night." He made a path down Duo’s spine, up then back down, counting the vertebrae he could identify. There was just enough light in the room to reflect off Duo’s eyes, looking down at him from above. "He said he could love her."

Duo’s hand curved tenderly against his cheek. "Yeah. He will."

"Do you think she's in love with him?"

"I think they'll be happy."

That wasn’t an answer. And it pissed him off. "She'd be an ass not to."

Duo laughed softly. "You gonna threaten her now?"

He shook his head. "You'd kill me. Or cut me off.” He cupped Duo’s ass cheeks and gave them a squeeze. “That would be worse."

Duo’s lips made their own trail along his jaw. "Let him live his own life," he advised.

"I intend to."

"So. We're back together, huh?" Duo shifted up on his elbows again, his expression inscrutable in the dark. "I have better hearing than Relena does."

Busted. “Aren't we?" he asked. Duo didn’t answer very quickly– at all– was just looking at him. "Aren't we?" he asked again, a little less coolly than he wanted to sound.

They kissed. Duo’s lips tasted like toothpaste. He could feel Duo getting hard, and God knew he was. A shiver hit him when Duo went down his jaw again, down his neck, with this little nip of his teeth right in the sweet spot.

“Aren't we?" he whispered.

Duo stopped moving, and his head rested against Trowa’s shoulder. His voice vibrated just a little where their chests touched. "Honestly... I don't know yet. I don't know if this is leftover from trying before or if it's the start of trying again. Do you?"

Fuck. Fuck. Trowa drew a deep breath, and offered, and hated himself, "We don't have to if you don't want it."

"Trowa, I know you have opinions. I'm asking directly for one."

"It can be whatever you want it to be, Duo."

Duo climbed off him, dropping face-down onto his pillow. Trowa stared up at the dark blot of the ceiling.

"I want you here," he said.

And a minute later, "We're back together. That's what I want."

Still nothing. There was a little more pleading in his voice than he’d known he had in him when he added, "I sleep better with you here."

Duo’s face finally turned toward him. He brushed Trowa’s hair back from his forehead. "I know." He kissed Trowa’s temple. "Go to sleep, honey."

"Can't baby steps be enough for you, Duo?" he whispered.

"Two years ago, yeah."

"Oh."

He knew when Duo went to sleep an hour later, but somehow, he couldn’t close his eyes.


	6. Six

He felt just the brush of Duo’s breath against the short hairs on the back of his neck. "Bet this is weirdly familiar,” Duo whispered. Trowa imagined a grin, though he couldn’t see one. “Oh, wait; you're usually where I'm sitting."

Trowa kicked his swivel chair around into a one-eighty so he could look up at Duo. "Wish I was now," he said.

Duo’s smile disappeared. "Shut up, fuckwit."

"I love when you talk dirty to me." He reached up to touch Duo’s jaw, tender. “Hey, don’t–”

The door behind him shut with a little click. "If you two could do that without the swearing,” a woman’s voice commented, “I'd be a happy lawyer."

Duo’s head went down and his feet went backward as Kiplis rejoined them at the conference table. Trowa watched him go, acting like he was just interested in the ugly oil paintings hanging on the walls. Kiplis slid two cans of juice across the table. Trowa took the orange and drank most of it before Duo had even popped the pin on the tomato. Kiplis resumed her seat, nothing more in her head, maybe, than the contents of her portfolio there on the table, than on accomplishing this one minor goal amidst all the rest of insanity around them. Trial in three weeks, and every day a host of reporters and paparazzi crowded the lawn out front, shouting for comments and pictures of the killer cop. Maybe Kiplis could be that focussed, but Trowa couldn’t, and sure as fuck Duo couldn’t.

He thought it, and even as he thought it decided it wasn’t fair. Duo was a lot of things, but never distracted, not when he could afford to be, never when it mattered. There were just, maybe, too many things to be focussed on, right now.

“Ready to continue?” Kiplis asked.

He was beyond tired. Stiff in an exceedingly unpleasant way. Infinitely more sympathetic to what Duo was going through, the toll of being so mentally tweaked eight hours a day, all just in rehearsal for the real thing. The real thing. Still three weeks away, and it could go on for a month, longer even. “Absolutely,” he replied gravely.

The light dropped out of her face like a switch had been thrown. “What is your relationship to Agent Maxwell?" she resumed, sternly.

Sympathetic, Sincere, and Simple, the mantra she’d been hammering him with all morning. "We've been friends for years,” Trowa said, arranging his expression to a pleasant vagueness. “He's my closest friend."

Kiplis made a note. "Try ‘best friend’ again. I want to hear it one more time before I decide."

"Agent Maxwell is my best friend."

Duo made a noise of impatience from his chair, five in the evening and the sun setting already out the bay windows behind him. "You're my lover,” he muttered. “Say that."

Considering how it had gone last night, that little declaration was kind of surprising. So were the ramifications. Trowa discovered he was chewing on his own thumbnail, and stopped himself. "Is that in his best interests?" he asked Kiplis.

"To be honest, Duo, I'd rather we stayed away from words that strong," she responded, looking first at Duo, then back at Trowa. "Best friends will say enough to the people who are worldly enough to guess. And the ones smart enough to guess will probably emphasise with the reasons for not saying the words. I think it helps us to toe the line."

Except Duo was sitting there with this look on his face like he didn’t care except with, like, his entire heart. Trowa stared at him.

“So,” Kiplis said, “we’ll go with best–”

"Or I could tell the jury, 'I'm in love with him.'"

Duo blinked. So did Trowa, and then he was staring at the table. A thousand times he’d thought– just say it, give him what he wants to hear. And he hadn’t. Hadn’t wanted to go there. Hadn’t wanted to lie about that. But he had to be flip, had to be oh, so amusing, tweak the lawyer lady, been at this since ten in the freaking morning with nothing but a lunch break, and Duo sitting there with his stuffing coming out the seams. It had just slipped out there, not even a stumble over the words. Not saying it directly to Duo, maybe. Took the weight off. The consequences.

Kiplis broke the silence, and finished her sentence. "Let's stick with ‘best friend’, for–"

Duo’s mobile buzzed, clattering on the table in front of them, and everyone in the room jumped. Duo nearly quashed it into the table, slapping it up into his hand to answer it. “Maxwell,” he snapped. Then, “Sir?” tense and puzzled.

His hands were damp. Trowa wiped them on his trousers. Duo glanced at him, his mouth open and his lips dark from biting them, then went to the other end of the room, down toward the windows, and it was practically a football field away, in a room big enough for a crowd of thirty. He said something else, but Trowa couldn’t hear it.

"So. Best friend." Kiplis smiled at Trowa. "The prosecution informs us that Security Officer Harrison was killed on September 16th last year. Do you happen to know where Agent Maxwell was then?"

"We went to Rio de Janeiro,” he recited. “Some clients of mine had a house party. I asked Duo to come."

"And how long were in you Rio?"

"Two weeks."

"And during that time, did Agent Maxwell ever leave your clients' house?"

"We went to the beach a few times."

"Sounds innocuous." She smiled. "You were with Agent Maxwell on March 22nd two years ago, as well, weren't you?"

"Yeah. That's my birthday."

"I have to go.” Duo was clipping the phone to his belt as he came back. “That was my captain. I might be a while. I’ll meet you at home.”

Trowa rose halfway, but stopped short of leaving his chair. “Oh.” He hesitated, then sat again. “Okay. Maybe I’ll pick up dinner?”

“Yeah.” Duo didn’t meet his eyes. So it was bad news, Trowa thought, and watched stubbornness flit over Duo’s face, followed by a sneaky guilt, and then Duo was headed toward the door, long strides– his cop walk– and then the door slammed shut.

“Fuck,” Trowa said.

Kiplis reached for the carafe in the centre of the table, and poured a glass of water for each of them. When she was seated again, she said, "You could be perfect, and it will backfire if he looks like that while you're up on the stand."

"So what the hell do you want from me?" Trowa demanded. He grabbed one of the glasses. His throat was so tight it almost hurt to drink. "Tell me what you want up there, and I'll be that. I'll be it so perfectly no one will doubt it."

Kiplis removed a printed sheet from her portfolio, and pushed it across the table to him. Trowa turned it to face him. A list of questions. "This is our base line of questions,” she said softly. “You've obviously testified before. Keep your answers short, don't elaborate unless I ask you, and we'll see how it goes. I'm going to go get our mock jury ready. When I get back, we'll run through this once, and then we'll try it out."

And then there was one. Trowa exhaled a deep breath into the still air of the conference room. This was getting– He wasn’t sure which of them Kiplis thought was going to blow it. He could see that Duo was strung out, but Duo had been all over the place since that first phone call from his jail cell in Preventers Holding. And how was Trowa supposed to fix that? Hell if he knew the first thing about fixing Duo, because Duo didn’t just break. Duo didn’t just not know what to do.

He hated feeling impotent. Hated it. The past couple of weeks had been all about it, though, and more intensely than he’d ever felt it before. Hated it. And he wanted to just grab Duo and fucking run out of town, screw all this bullshit. And he knew that was the stupidest thing he could do.

“Fuck,” he said again, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

 

**

 

Wufei only noticed how dark it had become when he reached for his dinner and discovered it was cold. He turned on his desk lamp and fished through the sticky rice for a lone floret of broccoli, now limp and greasy. He couldn’t bring himself to eat it.

Three desks over, Ryans heaved a sudden sigh. “I’m kicking it in, Chang,” he said, pulling his coat on. “You here for a while?”

“Yes.” Wufei dropped the remains of his take out into his garbage. “Tell Security for me? I don’t want to get locked in again.”

Whatever Ryans replied was swallowed up into a yawn. By the time he was walking out, though, Wufei had already turned back to his files. He pulled a magnifier from his drawer and held it over one of dozens of crime scene photos. He combed it centimetre by centimetre, not even sure anymore what he was looking for.

It was the smallest sound, but it echoed through the room. The door latch. Wufei took off his glasses as the man came toward him: half a nice suit, spoilt with an olive hoodie emblazoned with the block letters “PREVENTERS.” Wufei rubbed the sore spots his glasses had left on his nose, and closed all the folders on his desk.

Duo pulled a vacant chair to Wufei’s desk, and slouched low in it. "You're here late," he said abruptly.

"You are, too." Wufei cleaned the lenses of his glasses with the edge of his tie, but they were too smudged for such little relief. "I'm preparing."

"For?"

Wufei arched an eyebrow, wondering if that was sarcasm. But there was only tiredness in Duo’s face, dark circles under his eyes, and fingers that fidgeted restlessly with the frayed string from his hood. "I'm expected to testify," he said. “I received a subpoena two days ago.” From the DA, not the defence.

"Oh." Duo stuck the string between his front teeth, his gaze roaming the empty office. "Yeah, I think I knew that. I guess stuff is kind of slipping. All this shit I'm supposed to remember, you know? My head is swimming."

"The only thing you need to remember is that you didn't kill those men,” Wufei countered.

Duo turned a flat glare on him. "I got it. Thanks."

To think there’d been a time when Wufei hadn’t understood one in three words leaving Duo’s mouth, when he’d allowed himself to be angered by Duo’s constant need to push buttons, to speak his mind no matter how impolite. Was he scared? Nothing like it, probably. Duo was notoriously fearless, invariably anxious. Like a momma bear with overly adventurous cubs, Wufei had always thought.

Duo loosed another sally. "Haven't seen much of you since this started."

"I've been busy. Between the case load and Internal Affairs hounding Yuy and I, there's no time.” He found a tissue to clean his chopsticks, and returned them to the little bamboo sleeve he kept them in. “I’m sorry."

"Yeah, must suck."

He exhaled through his nose, inhaled deeply after. "This shouldn't be happening."

"If all the stuff that shouldn't be happening didn't, you and me wouldn't have jobs."

He hated how Duo did that. Always using humour to deflect, careless that it was transparent. "Have they threatened yours yet?" he pressed.

He knew the answer before Duo spoke when Duo’s eyes were suddenly preoccupied with the far wall. Duo said, "I handed in my badge ten minutes ago."

Wufei looked away himself, hoping it was mostly respect and nothing more cowardly that kept his eyes on his own hands. "They asked for it, or you volunteered?"

Duo shrugged, and the string fell from his mouth. "They sure were sorry 'bout it, but I'm not a public-relations headliner right now."

"When the trial's over, you'll be reinstated."

"This isn’t suspension without pay, asshole."

"If you've got something to say, Maxwell–"

"If I've got something to say, I'll fucking open my mouth. And can we have a fucking conversation without you trying to tell me how to be?"

There’d never been a punishment for choosing the side they’d fought for during the war. No punishment, but there was a reason three of them had ended out with the Preventers, a place where they could be watched, evaluated, re-conditioned. There was a reason they were kept in the subsidiary, non-military departments, little more than detectives with the weight of international treaty. That Trowa had evaded all effort at recruitment stung the brass, and he was watched. That Quatre had money enough to bury his past stung them, too, and that threat hung constantly over his head– behave, or face a long fight. But Preventers had been good to them, too. At a time when Wufei found himself as homeless as Duo, when Heero suddenly needed a new purpose to replace a defunct one, they’d been given everything they needed. They’d given nine years in return, nine years and uncountable hours, cleaning up the refuse of half a century of mismanagement and malignant neglect, completing the job they’d started when they’d boarded Gundams to destroy the Alliance.

Duo grabbed Wufei’s stapler and began to click it. Silver shards clinked down to Wufei’s desktop. "How's it going with IAB?" he asked.

A peace offering. Or Duo was genuinely distressed for their condition. "Poorly," he admitted. He brushed the discarded staples into his palm, and trashed them.

Duo didn’t take the hint, though, and created more. "What do you mean?"

"They've taken every case I’ve ever worked under review. Heero, too." Wufei indicated the topmost file under his hands. "On the positive side, they’re not looking to drown you."

"Maybe IAB could testify for me," he retorted drily. "Who've they got on you? Last time I ran down-wind of the bastards, they threw that Korean guy at me, Rhee. He is ruthless."

"Noin." Wufei discarded another palmful of staples. "I've got a handle on it. A plan."

"A plan? Bending over and grabbing your ankles is not a plan." Duo clicked the stapler at him, flinging a tiny slip into Wufei’s tie-clip. "Unless you're in a gay bar."

"That's not funny."

"Would be in a gay bar."

Wufei reached, and jerked the stapler out of Duo’s hand. “Are you capable of having a serious conversation?"

"I have a lot of them. Mostly, they don't go well."

They fell silent. Why did you go with us that night? Wufei asked him silently. Why didn’t you tell us more? Why didn’t you ask us to help you? Because all Duo had done that night, while they shouted at him and cuffed him and forced him into the back of their squad car, all Duo had done was let them. So maybe it was guilt that made him say, then, "This wasn't supposed to happen."

And Duo, unaware of his inner torment, only shrugged. "The conversation?"

"Your arrest. This trial. Any of it." Duo pulled the top folder from beneath Wufei’s hands. Wufei caught the edge as it left the desk, and held it closed. Duo resisted only for a few seconds, then let it go.

"It did happen, though,” he answered. “So I deal."

Deal.

Wufei slid the folder back at Duo. "Evidence," he said.

Duo weighed him for a moment, cautiously, if not suspiciously. But then he opened it decisively, flipped up the cover sheet to read it. "What is this?"

Nothing Duo would enjoy seeing. He coughed a little to clear his throat, and aimed the lamp in Duo’s direction. "It... turned up. Just read it.”

He watched Duo’s lips move as he skimmed. The skittish movements of his hands as he turned the pages, found the facsimiles. But he gave Duo credit– gave Duo credit for years of turning into the man he was today, the man who did not, not really, say every single thing that crossed his mind, no matter how fast that mind worked– and it did work fast. He could see that Duo understood almost immediately what he held, that he knew exactly what it meant. Give Duo the credit he’d earned, for giving people second, third, ninth chances on the outside possibility that people just made mistakes and had a right to learn from them. For that astounding capacity for kindness from someone– from someone that everything Wufei knew about the world told him shouldn’t be that unselfish. And watching for the little signs that Duo was getting worked up over the contents of that folder, Wufei found himself staring down at his hands. He’d read the entire journal through, twice now, and couldn’t decide if it was mere meticulousness, or mental imbalance. There wasn’t much to explain the journal other than a dangerous kind of possessiveness, not that Trowa had ever tracked that well, that sanely. There’d been a point where he’d thought, believed, that Trowa would be better for Duo than any however-well-intentioned civilian could be, because of what Trowa was, because of what they all were, and if any of them were going to have a real relationship, a real chance at making a normal life out of scraps of determination, it was Duo and whoever Duo took with him.

Except that he’d taken Trowa, of all of them, and maybe that hadn’t been the best decision, a year of separation aside, if that journal was what it looked like. Duo was the bastion of normality, should normality be defined as the kind of crazy that didn’t interfere with daily function. The journal wasn’t that kind of crazy. The journal was– but educational, too. If one could extrapolate, maybe Trowa’s feelings, and always be careful when ascribing feelings to Trowa Barton, then maybe Trowa’s feelings for Duo ran deeper than anyone realised.

Duo rose abruptly. "Can I take this?" he asked gruffly.

"I've been looking for ways to get it to you for three days," he admitted uneasily.

"Thank you." Duo closed the folder with an angry snap. "I appreciate this."

He inclined his head to that, and concentrated on returning the neck of the lamp to its previous position. "He doesn't get that it wasn't the right thing to do."

"Well, that's part of the problem, isn't it?"

"Maybe he's not the only one."

Duo exhaled explosively. "I appreciate you letting me see it. I don't appreciate a lecture about it."

He was chagrined. Wufei shifted in his seat, transferring his hands to the armrests of his chair, and finding them chilled. "I'm finished," he said.

"Yeah.” Duo stood there, and to Wufei’s concern, he looked– lost, maybe. But only for a moment, just barely long enough to see it, and then his face went hard somehow, almost wooden. “Good luck with your testimony," he added stiffly.

"Thanks.” Wufei nodded. “You too."

"Yeah." Duo saluted half-heartedly. The folder stayed tucked to his chest. “Yeah.”

"Duo."

Duo turned back. “What.”

Wufei fiddled with his glasses, squeezing the nose pieces closer together carefully. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Duo looked away first. "Me too. So, see you round.”

His glasses seemed unusually heavy when he put them on. He went back to the IAB folder, but the words were swimming, and he had open cases that deserved more of his attention. He waited for the sound of the latch– waited for it– the longer he waited, the harder it was to keep his gaze where it belonged, down on lines he couldn’t even see now, but he– didn’t have the guts to take it any further to where it needed to be.

 

**

 

Trowa’d had an uneasy night’s sleep, dreaming– something he didn’t do, not that often, not that lately– dreaming of chasing lawyers down endless and dark alleys. Never quite catching them, and not at all sure what he was meant to do if he did, but running and running and never making progress. He’d waked, exhausted, at four, still dark out, and Duo still hadn’t been home.

He’d stretched his wait until almost eight, finishing a bowl of tasteless polenta and making one too many pots of coffee, before he’d finally decided to drive in to the firm and hope Duo meant to meet him there. The mind supplied endless alleys awake, too, scenario after scenario and all increasingly worse that explained Duo’s more than twelve hour absence. And overly caffeinated, his stomach upset with the stimulants, he’d actually sat in the parking garage, wondering if he was afraid to go in.

He passed Duo’s car in the front lot, walking into the firm. Which meant Duo had been to his own apartment, last night, to pick it up. Had possibly slept there, instead of coming back to Trowa’s.

Trowa climbed the steps more slowly than he would otherwise, thinking, brooding, really. He’d had plenty of time to think and re-think that stumble, yesterday, the word he’d let slip that he’d never– and why would he?– felt the need to say before. Enough time to decide that Duo hadn’t been ready to hear it, that Duo might never be ready– no, not _be ready_ , but _believe_ , because the root of their entire relationship had always been Duo not believing that Trowa didn’t have feelings– the same feelings– big enough same feelings that Duo did.

To the point where Trowa had grown to resent it, a little, grown– ungenerous, in his reactions to Duo’s poorly-timed desires to argue, to the constant drone of tiny adjustments Duo forced onto Trowa’s lifestyle. To coming home after six weeks in some sweaty, miserable shit-hole of a job to a Duo who wasn’t in the mood, not for sex, not for talk, mono-focussed on some crap up at Preventers, some save-the-world-drama to which Trowa had not been invited because he, he had bowed out gracefully after the Eve War, handed in his Heavyarms and believed the infant peace they’d bled for needed to learn to walk on its own fucking feet.

Ask Duo whether he could bear going back to L2. Ask Duo to cut off an arm, sure, ask him to fight the battles no-one else would fight, you bet– ask him to go back to the only place he’d ever called home, and watch.

The receptionist greeted him when he walked past, and so did one of the paralegals, used now to seeing him around the firm, in a place that could afford to take on only the cases they cared to, in a place where three of five partners could concentrate on one client for months at a time. The receptionist had a coffee for him in seconds of his arrival, a well-foamed café au lait in delicate gold-rimmed service, and sent him toward “the Skartsdottir Conference room, sir, Mr Addison and Ms Kiplis are already waiting.” She escorted him to the door, and let him in.

It might as well have been Command Central. It was central, to the mock-jury rooms, to the bank of computers using software even Preventers didn’t have the funding to buy, to the offices and even a small forensics lab. When he’d been in there last, just yesterday morning, the corkboard wall had been head-to-toe photographs of jury members and crime-scene prints, today it was– the entire wall-length corkboard– poster-sized prints of pages of his logs.

Trowa's logs. Shit. Holy shit.

Duo stood by the small refreshments table, and he really must have gone to his own apartment, because he was wearing old clothes, clothes Trowa hadn’t fetched out of the closet for him, ripped jeans and a faded tee shirt, not the suit they’d just bought. Watching him already when Trowa picked him out of the rest of the visual noise. He said, "Dude, you're fucked."

Trowa opened his mouth, fully intending to talk, to deny, to reply– he didn’t have it formed at all– but Duo was already choosing out of the breakfast baskets, already ignoring him. Didn’t come home all last night and Trowa had, yes, fucked, hoped he’d get over the funk in time to deal with something else he wasn’t going to like.

Heads had turned when he entered, Addison, and Kiplis too, no sign of her motherly smiles this morning, and an older lawyer Trowa had met only twice, the Virbach of the Strawn and Virbach original firm. But it was Addison who moved first, junior partner who walked like he wanted to be sprinting, his fingers tangled up in straightening his tie as he crossed the room to Trowa. "Good morning,” Addison said abruptly. “We have a problem."

Kiplis began making soothing motions with her hands. "A situation, not a problem."

Virbach was still glaring at him. And Trowa realised he wasn’t thinking fast enough, had made an open target of himself, and the longer he stood there letting them fill in his silences with their wrong guesses, with the suspicions he knew they had, the less control he could have over the outcome. "Okay,” he said, and chose Kiplis to direct himself to– she seemed most inclined to be reasonable, and he was going to need reasonable now. “What's up?" he asked, achieving a casual tone that didn’t at all match the chaos of mis-firing thoughts inside.

“I really think it's not that bad," she answered, only answering Addison still, not Trowa.

Addison heaved a huge breath, and his arm went out rigid to point at the blow-ups. "Would you please explain to me that this is not what it looks like, and is in fact something perfectly innocent?"

Trowa followed the tip of his finger. His handwriting, spidery, written from right to left margins with his timecodes legible this far across the room. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "It's perfectly innocent."

"It is perfectly innocent, Marc," Kiplis interjected.

“It's a stalker journal!"

"Maybe it's an innocent stalker journal." From Duo, spreading jam on a bagel at the table. All three lawyers turned to stare at him, now. Duo waved an empty cup. "Do you have green tea?"

He couldn’t understand Duo’s attitude, and there was nothing in Duo’s face or body language to clue him in. Trowa cleared his throat, and forced a laugh when heads came swivelling back to his direction. "Look, do you want the truth about that log?"

Addison stared at him. "I want something that doesn't sound insane."

"I hate his job,” Trowa said simply. “I hate it more when he gets the shit beat out of him. First time that happened, I decided to play guardian angel. That's what the log is about.” It was in the log, first entry, as a matter of fact, but he spelled it out anyway, with everyone but Duo looking at him like witnesses at a train wreck. “He goes off on a thing that’s supposed to last five weeks, he tells me, but he comes back in three months with a broken arm and there’s bruises shaped like boot-prints on his back. That’s what the log is about.”

It was Virbach who called judgement on his confession. "Guardian angels do not,” he said, with a thunderous scowl making deep lines out of his wrinkles, “record people's movements like this."

"Thorough ones do."

Kiplis turned back to Duo. “The book says he never interfered on your cases. Is that true?"

Duo didn’t look at Trowa. He didn’t answer right away, and that bothered Trowa. But there wasn’t much of a chance before Addison, fully freaking out now, burst into movement, disarranging his hair with frantic thrusts of his fingers. "This is a mess,” he accused Trowa. “You should have disclosed this to us from the beginning."

He had to run that through his mental filter, that _this is a mess_ , because some instinct in him twigged to the fact that Addison’s idea of mess didn’t match Trowa’s, even with all the same qualifications. Quatre hadn’t been meant to find this, just Trowa’s manufactured evidence. Had he not looked at it before passing it on? Or was this not from Quatre at all– Quatre wasn’t that sloppy, Quatre wasn’t that naive. Which left too many uncomfortable alternatives, too many people who might have seen an advantage in painting Trowa a crazy. He couldn’t trace the motives, he couldn’t trace the clues even. He drew a cleansing breath, and went for the only line he had a chance of selling. He asked, "Addison, have you ever served in the miliary?"

Duo wiped his fingers on a napkin. "This is good,” he said. “This is where he tells you how in our kind of life, this makes sense."

Fuck, fuck, his mind chanted. Duo wouldn’t look at him, deliberately withheld any reassurance, not that there was much about that bitter mocking tone that left any doubt of his reception.

Addison ignored that. “You haven't served in the military."

"Oh. Huh.” That made him angry, that genuinely made him angry, and he suddenly realised he had a headache, had had a headache for what felt like a month. “I seem to remember something about soldiering ... but, hey.” He shrugged elaboratedly. “Never mind, then. We'll skip the lecture on brothers-in-arms and how we look out for each other, in that case."

"What you did–” What _I_ did? What _we_ did? Trowa thought resentfully– “will not constitute soldiering in the eyes of the jury, and this– journal will not constitute anything healthy, either!"

For fuck’s sake. "But Duo bears no responsibility for my actions, does he?” Trowa retorted. “Paint me out to be a lunatic if you want to. Duo wasn't even aware of the log."

They were all looking at Duo, then. Who looked back, this flat, grim look, and Duo said, "I’ve read it.”

That shocked him, jolted him right into– Duo was never supposed to have seen it, because it was Trowa’s little exercise, Trowa’s little– it was private, it wasn’t meant to be a– thing, it wasn’t meant for anyone but himself, and the headache was getting worse, forecasting a truly awful– pain.

"When?" he asked, and his voice came out weird, and Duo just looked at him, none of his thoughts evident or readable. Duo’s eyes were purple, a true purple, and right now they were mirrors, only showing back the avalanche Trowa already knew was coming.

"A friend found it."

"You didn’t tell me."

Duo finished his bagel. “Yeah."

He remembered suddenly to breathe, and it was audible, and he was embarrassed by that. "Fuck you," he said harshly. Duo’s eyes went away, just like that, and Trowa was left standing in unaccustomed humiliation, feeling denuded in front of the lawyers, who, all of them, were watching wide-eyed as an audience could be.

Addison broke the silence. "We're getting off track,” he said, normal volume, careful tone, tiptoeing tone. “We need to think about how we're approaching this."

Trowa looked at him. "I told you how to approach it."

"I think we'd be better off finding a way of describing the log that will be–” Kiplis hesitated. “More accessible. Yes, more accessible to the jury."

"And how might that be?"

Virbach had crossed his arms, and he was studying the blow-ups. "We call it what it is."

Addison rode right over that. "It's a stalker–"

"Yes. And we go with that." The old man pulled a thick set of papers from the table, dog-eared and highlighted, and Trowa realised with only a numb sort of surprise that it was a copy of his log, all three years of it, right out of the original. The original. He’d thought it had been safely hidden away, innocuous among his other books and the files he kept for work– which meant someone had searched his place– illegally, unless Duo had let them in, but Duo would have told him. Had searched knowing what to look for, which could mean Preventers just doing their job, could mean– Heero or Wufei? Quatre even? Was this something calculated–

“Alibis,” Trowa said abruptly, and won their attention back. It began to resolve into sense and a faint tinge of hope. “The log has alibis. The log is proof of alibis, because I followed Duo, when I could, on even undercover assignments, times Duo can’t legally testify about.” He had to uncross his arms, ease out of the combative stance he’d taken unconsciously– he wanted them to hear him, to agree with him. “But there’s no onus on discovery of documents. And that log can give every detail a prurient jury could want, Duo’s movements, Duo’s moods, Duo’s conduct. That log is Duo Maxwell in print.”

Virbach showed him a page, then another, and a third, all bookmarked. “The ADA will want to use these sections here,” he explained tightly. “They'll want to make you look like a freak with a gun and a whopping obsession–"

“Well, look at him,” Trowa tried. “Wouldn't you?"

Addison turned on him. "They're going to say that someone this obsessed would lie for Duo,” he said, clipping off each word like he was biting them out. “Would cover up for him. That this diary of yours is some elaborate ruse. And they’ll make you read aloud every time you watched Duo with another man, every time you sat outside his apartment watching him through windows, and the ADA will turn and look at the jury and raise an eyebrow and your credibility will be gone."

"You want credibility?” He was hitting a panic mode, a deep well of panic he hadn’t been in since the war, when he’d still had night terrors about the cold of Space, the shock of his suit exploding around him, a black pit of claustrophobic– the anger was there like a lightning strike into sand and he seized on it. He felt the nerves to his face disconnect, felt the crushing weight on his chest evaporate. His voice sounded dead even to his own ears. He said, “Here’s my credibility. I'm a Preventer and I've been working deep cover for the last six years. No-one knew but Director Une and the President’s Security Council. There's documentation, all available for subpoena. You can take that to the jury.” And still in that mode, Trowa demanded, "Didn't any of you wonder how I had so much fucking access to his secrets?"

The last thing he’d expected in response was– Duo laughing. Any triumph Trowa had been starting to feel disappeared. Duo laughed, and put down his tea, and then he walked out of the room.

Kiplis spoke. "Is this true?"

His mouth was dry. Trowa looked back at her, saw nothing more than a blur of ginger hair and her dark suit. "I just threw away the only thing that ever mattered to me,” he said, and a second after he said it, just a second after, it hit, a crash of sudden, immense depression. He felt irrationally wild, staring at the spot where Duo had been standing. “Do you think I'd do that with a lie?"

Addison put down the copy of Trowa’s log. "We need proof,” he said, oddly formal. Trowa nodded, then nodded again, his brain stumbling to fill in what was needed.

"Call Une," he said.

"We can't– we can't just call the head of the Preventers." Addison implored Virbach with an uncertain look. "Can we? We can't do that."

Virbach, too, looked stunned by the rapidity of the turn-about. "Are there, I don't know– are there code words?"

"Kiplis, hand me your mobile." She did, immediately retrieving her purse from the table and passing it wordlessly to Trowa. He dialed from memory, adding the four-key extension that would put him straight on a private emergency line. It rang– he didn’t have the wherewithal to count, but it rang and rang– and just when he would have given up to try another number, the line clicked, and he heard her draw in a breath to answer him.

He interrupted before she could. He said, "I'm made. Confirm it for them." He didn’t wait for an answer to that, either, before thrusting the phone at Addison.

Who wore an expression of wide-eyed amazement. He pressed the phone tentatively to his ear. "Hello?” he began uncertainly. His shoulders straightened a moment later. “Ma'am, my name is Marc Addison, I'm Duo Maxwell's..." He trailed off, listening closely. "It– it might be. It goes a long way toward explaining things."

Une talked for a long time, then. Trowa could imagine. He’d catch hell, he’d catch holy hell– exposure that had hardly been unavoidable, his usefulness curtailed with a public performance. Doing exactly what the brass upstairs had always feared the Gundam Pilots would do– rally around each other first, the Department a far second. Une would eat him alive, and there’d be– there could be– he could go to jail, he really could, if this got public, true high-security confinement because they’d have to disavow him, they’d have to call him a rogue, a traitor, this could be years of his life unravelling, and that meant falling back on the plan, the one plan that had always been his fall-back– disappear into the sphere, disappear as completely as you could when even the name you called yourself was borrowed from a dead man.

He’d never really adjusted that plan to include Duo, so confident that he was on top of it, but leaving now– he should be out the door right now, he should be out the damn fucking door before Une was any wiser about his position, except–

Except Duo needed him.

Addison nodded abruptly. "I'll have that in a few hours. We'll let you know. Yes. Ma'am. Thank you." The phone closed with a little snap of plastic, and he passed it to Trowa. Trowa nearly pocketed it before remembering it wasn’t his, and he gave it back to Kiplis. To the other lawyers, Addison said, “We have a lot of work. I want the judge on the phone now, I want a sequestered jury, and I want a subpoena at One Preventers Plaza immediately."

There was a little white space, then, for Trowa. He was looking at all of them, and then they weren’t there anymore. He picked up the copy of his journal, now left sprawled open on the table, and turned it to the first page.

_207.16.07 Maxwell turned up last night, beat all to hell. Broken right radius, extensive bruising to the face and body, superficial lacerations. He’s stonewalling, which means it happened working a case._

_207.18.07 Last twenty-four spent making calls and keeping him quiet. Condition improving. Silence continues._

_207.22.07 Contact in ALKN confirms his assailants. Neutralised that this morning while he slept._

 

 

 

He found Duo on the roof, trailing him through an open door at the top of a stairwell. He watched Duo looking down on the city, wishing he had the imagination to know what Duo was thinking, so high above everything like that. For people born on colonies, tall buildings meant vertigo, usually. It meant being closer, on colonies, to the centre. Here, it just meant farther away.

Trowa joined him slowly, setting the toe of his loafer against the low brick walk that lined the edge. "So, yeah," he said.

Duo turned his face in the other direction. Trowa made to swallow, but his throat was dry, and it hurt.

"You weren't my assignment." It came out just above a whisper, and he made himself swallow this time, coming up with just enough saliva to talk. "That log was a stalker journal."

"I'm not a fucking moron,” Duo said. “I know what the log was."

"Okay, so then this is about I lied to you."

Two years of good together, of easy fun and sexual compatibility and mutual satisfaction, and then one day Duo had looked at him, with the exact same expression he wore right now, and explained in a polite little voice that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, that people burnt out on each other, that he needed– Duo always needed– that he _needed_ more than what he was getting, than what Trowa had on offer, that it wasn’t enough to _like_ and _enjoy_ when at the bottom of all that Duo just _needed_ what had never been and was never going to be– on the table.

"My job is dangerous?” Duo spat out. “You're one ripe asshole."

"Never denied that, baby."

"Don't fucking baby me." Duo hooked his hands under his elbows. It was cold as snot, and a wind was kicking up. Duo’s fingers were white from it. “I can almost buy it when we were together, but why'd you keep doing it when we weren’t?"

"I couldn't stop.” Had to know. Had to– “I had to know."

"That's not normal." Duo’s voice cracked, a little cruel. "That's not normal, Tro."

"I don't care."

Duo’s mouth opened. Cold enough that his breath didn’t even steam. But he didn’t answer, so Trowa stepped closer, wrapped his arms about Duo. He rubbed chilled bare arms, gone all to gooseflesh, and rested his chin on the top of Duo's hair. "Say it doesn't matter." Duo resisted tensely, and Trowa realised, too late, how tightly he was holding the man. The anger was just radiating out of Duo, leaking out at the seams, so– aggressively unreasonable. "Just until the trial's over, and– ” Like the rest of him. If anything, why couldn’t it be a compliment? All the attention Duo had claimed Trowa didn’t pay out. “Until you don't need me any more."

He didn’t entirely expect Duo to turn in the circle of his arms, to slip cold hands about his waist. It wasn’t much of an embrace, but it was something. He bent to kiss Duo, trying to reach his mouth, but Duo pushed, then, pushed and wiggled away. Trowa stood with his shoulders against the brick wall, and Duo said, "I need time to think, is what I need right now."

"Yeah," he answered. He drew a deep breath, one that stung in his lungs. It might snow, during the night. Felt that cold. He added, asked, because he didn’t quite dare to command, "Come back inside, okay?"

"No. Not right now."

"Don't be an ass. You're shivering."

"Fucking go inside, Tro."

The quiver of the tone made him hesitate. Didn’t know if it was temper or the way his lips had gone pale. "It was fucking transparent to you for all that time,” he said. “I don't get why you're so pissed off now."

Duo’s face wasn’t turned toward him. He watched long, loose hairs tremble on the breeze, sometimes catching the light, falling dark against Duo’s neck. "Nothing about you was ever transparent. Not a single damn thing."

"Then you weren't really looking," he retorted flatly.

"This is not my fault!" The sudden shout made him start. It echoed hollowly, bouncing off the blank glass walls of the taller buildings about them. "This is not my _fault_ , Trowa, this is not my god-damn fault!"

"I never said it was. Fuck.” Trowa made a grab, and caught Duo’s wrist. He held on when Duo tried to wrench away, and hurt his thumb. “Fuck, relax. Come inside."

The door opened. He caught it happening out of the corner of his eye, and let go of Duo out of surprise. It was Kiplis. Bundled up, unlike either of them, but holding their coats in her arms. Once the image of her processed, Trowa took Duo’s off her, and tossed it over Duo’s shoulders. “Come on,” he told Duo. “We'll finish this later."

Duo put himself through a weird dance, swaying back from Trowa, trying to slip past both of them without touching. Looked back, his shoulders tight and his head ducked low. Then he went through the door, in a sudden burst of decisiveness, and went clattering down the stairs while the door slammed behind him.

Kiplis held out Trowa’s coat. Trowa took it. It wasn’t much of a shield against the cold, but it cut the wind, at least. He turned up the collar. "Thanks," he murmured.

Her mouth curved in a little smile that didn’t quite warm her eyes. She said, "I started a new pot of coffee for you."

Trowa managed his own fleeting gesture of politeness. "I appreciate that."

She twisted the door handle. But then stopped, and looked back at him. "A lot of couples don't make it through something like this. A big trial."

He put his hands in his pockets. His fingers were numb. "Maybe we're not a couple."

She fixed the lapel of his coat, patting it flat. She wore gloves, but her hand was still small, her fingers light on his chest. “Come get coffee," she told him.


	7. Seven

Wufei had the mobile on vibrate. He took it out of his pocket, annoyed, and dropped it into the cupholder on the dash. The ID flashed bright blue, cutting the darkness inside his car.

Across the street, a light came on above the garage. A moment later, a man emerged from a screen door, carrying bags of garbage to the street. A woman waited, silhouetted by the doorframe, yelling hoarsely.

His phone fell silent as it went to voicemail. Wufei shifted in his seat, resting his wrists over the edge of the wheel. He watched the man go back up the drive, watched the argument that followed. He was too far away to hear specifics, but the screeching tones were clear enough.

The mobile began to buzz again, rattling in place. Wufei flicked it open with his thumb and lifted to his ear. "What's up?"

Heero’s voice was quiet and familiar. _"Wondering where you are."_

"I went for a ride,” Wufei said. “Just to clear my head. It's nice out. Cold." The woman was agitated, her fists waving through the air. Wufei watched closely, waiting to see if it came to blows; but they calmed soon enough.

 _"Oh.”_ Heero’s exhale was gentle. _“Rather come out for a drink?"_

"Yeah. Okay." He pushed his key into the ignition, but didn’t turn it. "Where?"

_"Sheridan's is still open."_

"I can be there–" He licked his lips, and turned on the car. The air that blasted from the vents wasn’t yet hot, and he curled his fingers in the sleeves of his coat. "When?"

_"I'm already there."_

"Give me ten minutes."

_"See you there. Thanks."_

 

**

 

"You don't have to talk to me, but you do have to eat," Trowa said. The television cast a blueish glow over the duvet, over Duo’s bare stomach. Trowa stared at it to keep the dark from creeping in on the edges of his vision.

"I don’t fucking want to. I want to just go to sleep, please."

There was no intimacy of eye-contact, not in the dark.

"Brought you a drink."

"Christ, stop trying to feed me! You don't always have to fucking feed me in a crisis."

He set the pasta bowl on the bureau, swigged his beer, and walked out. “Fuck you, Duo,” he said in the living room. When the door slammed behind him, he faced it, and added, "Fuck the fucking door too!"

From the other side, Duo hit the wood. Then there was a staccato of punches and kicks, hollow thumps against the cheap door. And then silence.

Walking into Trowa’s world of half-hiding. Depriving Trowa of seeing him clearly, because he was mad. Or maybe Trowa was just noticing it now, just assuming there were reasons for the obvious.

He finished his beer slowly, knowing that if he went in now, shit was going to break. He finished his beer, and another one. He stood leaning his forehead against the wall. “Damnit, Duo,” he said. “Let me in.”

 

**

 

Heero had a booth in the back right corner, out of the light, his back to the wall. Wufei waved off the hostess and a menu and picked a path through the tables on the floor. A raucous cheer went up from the bar as he manoeuvred through the crowd; there was a sports game on the flat screens hanging from the ceiling. Wufei spared it only a glance.

"You started without me," he observed, nudging Heero’s half-empty glass as he took the open bench. It left his back open, and he didn’t like it, but it wasn’t worth cajoling Heero into moving.

"Sorry,” Heero said. “That kind of day. Night."

"What's going on?"

A waitress had noticed his entrance, and joined them, interrupting with the casual rudeness of poorly-trained staff. “You been here before, honey? Specials are on the board, or I can show you our menu.”

“Iced tea,” he said. “Non-alcoholic. That’s all.”

Heero had a third of his glass left, rolling slowly between his square hands. "You give Duo the log?" he asked.

Heero had been the one to find it, while Wufei manned the getaway car. Heero had declined to read it, too. "Yes,” Wufei answered briefly. “It didn't make him happy."

Heero lifted his beer, and sipped. "I thought Duo might call one of us."

Meaning Heero. "He's got to work this out on his own. It's how he operates." The waitress returned with his tea, placing it for him without asking if he wanted anything else, and darting away before he could have asked her even if he did. The glass left a wet ring on the polished tabletop. Wufei blotted it with a napkin, and added, "He'll call eventually."

"Do you think he'll break up with Trowa again?"

"He should, but he won't." He studied the down-turned curve of Heero’s gaze. "He won't forgive either of us for a while."

Heero drank again, at that. He wasn’t looking at Wufei, possibly not even thinking about his partner.

"You let that window close a long time ago, Heero."

"What?" Heero glanced at him, and downed another swallow.

"Duo."

"He's not a window," Heero said.

Wufei sprung a smile at that. "Don't be an ass."

Heero caught the eye of their waitress and silently motioned for a new drink. Wufei suspected it wasn’t the first one; Heero was a lightweight, unused even to casual drinking. "Where were you when I called?” Heero asked him abruptly. “I tried your place first."

"I already told you that. Just a ride.” He turned to look, and saw the waitress at the tap filling a glass with amber and foam. “Did you drive here?"

"I came earlier with Stenson. Car's still at HQ."

"Stenson left?" That more or less made up his mind about taking Heero home. He was drunk, or at least determined to be. A scan of the bar showed a few olive shirts with the logo stretched across the back, but they weren’t anyone Wufei knew.

"Do you think it's that he's sick?"

The non-sequitur threw him. "Pardon?"

Heero’s dark blue eyes were finally meeting his. "Trowa,” he said. “Do you think he's like that because he's sick?"

He had his misgivings about Trowa. Not that particular one. But Heero had a blind spot when it came to Duo, and the blind spot came with baggage about Duo’s chosen mate. He didn’t precisely want to defend Trowa, but saw that he was going to have to. "I think...” He searched cautiously for the right words, the minimal words. “He's like that because he's thorough."

Heero didn’t accept that, but didn’t challenge it, either. "We put people in jail for writing things like he wrote," he said, his expression indecipherable in the low light.

"He hasn't done anything wrong, Heero. He's made no threats. He– hell– this is normal for him.” Wufei shrugged weakly. “You know that. All of us do odd things."

"Maybe that just makes all of us sick."

"Maybe."

If Heero reached for the new drink, Wufei would stop him, he decided. This was going no-where healthy, no-where productive.

"We're too– "

"Say it," Wufei encouraged.

"Too wrapped up in each other's lives," he finished softly.

"I think that's what friends are supposed to do."

"Not as we do." Wufei watched, concerned, as Heero rotated the cup between his palms again, staring into the dregs of his drink like meaning resided there. "Every time we start to pull away, there's a crisis. Every time we get too close, it... it gets so messy."

"We're not special in that, Heero. It happens every day." He hesitated, and determined it was time to ask a very impertinent question. Quietly, hoping to alleviate the sting, he asked, "Are you in love with him?"

To his surprise, Heero merely shrugged, and finished the beer in a long swallow. "I wouldn't know if I were."

Wufei slid the new drink away before Heero could think to reach for it. "You don't have to confide in me."

Heero almost smiled, but the expression didn’t last. "Are you in love with anyone?"

He was instantly nervous, terribly disquieted. "No," he said shortly. "I'm not good at those kinds of things."

Heero seemed to lose interest. "I guess none of us are."

"Come on,” Wufei murmured. “I'll take you home."

Heero didn’t stand when he did. He hunched over the table, tracing the outer edges of a coaster. "Are you going to be there during the trial?"

"Whenever I'm not on duty, yes." Wufei slowly resumed his seat. "Aren't you?"

"Do you think he wants us to?"

That question seemed wildly baseless. "I think he'd appreciate the support." Never mind that they’d put him there. He felt sure from his brief visit with Duo the day before that Duo needed the reminder; he needed his friends, all of them, around him.

"He hasn't talked to me at all."

Wufei drew and exhaled a cleansing breath, and sipped from his tea for the first time. "Have you talked to him, Heero?” he returned. “Have you even tried?" Knowing already that Heero had not. It was one thing to worry that Duo was angry at him; it was another to avoid the topic altogether, until the blame began to rest on the one person who couldn’t be expected to open the door.

Heero leant back in his seat, his wrists slipping from the table to his lap. "Did you ever throw out those old climbing boots?"

Wufei only looked at him, and blinked first. "I don't think I have them any more. Going hiking?" He made a show of stretching his arms to look at his wristwatch. "We should go."

Heero wore a low blush, but his mouth was sad. "All right," he agreed.

Wufei rose, sure they were actually going to leave this time, and buttoned his fatigues against the winter cold. “We can talk more in the car,” he promised, and trusted he didn’t sound as reluctant as he felt. “Okay?"

"I might just doze, if you don't mind."

 

**

 

"There was like a year's worth of stuff in there.” Duo’s voice was muffled, but Trowa heard it. He slid to the floor, to put his ear to where the sound originated, head-height on a sitting man. “From after we broke up."

"And that makes me a psycho,” he said. The door was cool against his cheek, and thin, cheap, not smoothed even with the glister of maplewood stain. “I know. Because you really didn't give me a choice when you ran out on me. Did you?"

"Oh, fucking get off your high horse about that. You knew I was going and where.” Duo shifted, and Trowa imagined them touching, hands clenched to fists and touching the same spot. “It's not like I ran off into the night and you never heard from me again. You helped me move my fucking couch!"

"Yeah, fine. So what's your problem with this then? That I didn't tell you I cared enough about you to keep track of your movements?"

"Keep track? You're a fucking stalking creep."

That was moderately venomous. Trowa had to resist correcting him– that’s a fucking, stalking prick– and did resist, because Duo was already on a roll, and he was tired. So instead, he said, "Open the damn door, Duo."

"Jesus frigging Christ." He heard Duo scramble to his feet, and rose just in time as it wrenched open. If they were going to argue, and God, they were going to argue, he didn’t want to do it through a door, in the doorway, like some kind of metaphoric threshold. Duo was faster, but Trowa was stronger, and he manhandled Duo across the room to the couch, threw him at it. Duo went down in a sprawl without catching himself, and Trowa stood over him, and if it felt disturbing, then maybe it was only fair that both of them be disturbed at the same time.

"What do you want from me here, Duo,” he said. “Because I'm not sure what your objection is. There are half a dozen prove-able alibis in those logs. Proofs that might get you an acquittal without implicating anyone. Just like you wanted. And none of them are lies."

"You know why I don't like the packaging,” Duo spat at him. “You know exactly why!"

"No. I really don't." It was too much effort to maintain the tatters of his calm. He didn’t like Duo’s temper. It made him feel cornered; he’d never quite been comfortable fighting back.

Duo rolled on the couch, sitting up, his legs splayed and his arms at sharp angles. "Yeah, well, maybe that's true. Cause that journal– fucking hell.” His eyes were dark, half-tired, half-crazy, slanted up at Trowa. “You know what I'd think if I read something like that at work? Normal people don't do this."

"We're not normal people." A beat passed, and the argument might have passed, too, except he added, “Normal people don’t need a parade of shrinks to figure this shit out.”

He knew he deserved the whispered “bastard” that greeted that. It was that kind of night. They were neither of them being kind.

 

**

 

The roads were not busy, but their luck with the lights was bad, and they were stopped frequently on the way to Heero’s apartment complex. Sheridan’s was closer to Wufei’s than it was to Heero’s, but with the heat warming them to a sleepy lassitude and the dark glow outside the windows interrupting nothing, the drive wasn’t a poor one. Except that every time he glanced sideways, he saw Heero not-dozing, staring out his window with his closed fists the outward evidence of his internal conflict.

"They really don’t have anything,” he offered near the half-way point. His voice sounded loud against the quiet they’d let build up between them, too abrupt perhaps to be the comfort he’d almost meant for it to be. “They could dig up as much on either of us that might suggest guilt.”

Heero’s head turned toward him, and his hands unclenched, just slightly. “How do you reckon?”

A left turn brought them out of downtown and toward the residentials. “We all have access to the same files, war records that border on terrorism.” Wufei wet his lips, and thumbed down the AC to defrost his windscreen. “The sensibility of a killer.”

Heero took up his staring again. “I think that’s a matter of choice, not opportunity.”

“All of us have chosen to kill when the decision wasn’t forced.”

“When you found him there, why did you think it was him? Why did you immediately think he was responsible for all nine?”

The words were an accusation, even if the tone was only curious. “You thought so, too,” Wufei protested uncertainly.

“I know. I’m asking why you did.”

“Maybe because he was standing over the body?”

He heard more than saw the slight shake of Heero’s head. “Why really?”

“He was there,” Wufei snapped, suddenly agitated. “Why are you persisting in this?”

“He shot me. The first time he saw me.”

He was beginning to be frustrated, and reminded himself sharply that Heero had drunk too much, enough to earn the consideration of being ignored if he crossed too many unwritten lines. “All right, then,” he said stiffly.

“I’ve spent ten years thinking I didn’t really care about it. But that’s what I thought, when we found him. He was willing to shoot a stranger.”

His anger melted into confusion. “You think he’s guilty?”

“No.” Heero sat turned away from him, and Wufei didn’t have the imagination just then to know what his face would look like. “But I see how he could be.”

It occurred to him that they’d arrived at the same argument, even if they meant different things. Wufei turned onto 42nd, and found himself at a red again. “Would you do your best to get him off even if you believed he was?”

It was, after all, essentially what Heero had asked him, the morning after arresting their friend. He didn’t expect to be surprised by the answer, and he wasn’t.

“I don’t think there’s anyone qualified to judge him,” Heero said. But us hovered unspoken, so many years ingrained it didn’t even require voice.

“So would I,” Wufei answered. “No matter which one of us it was. If it were any of us.”

“Yeah,” Heero said briefly.

 

**

 

"So were you lying?” Duo asked, and, hilariously, probably really wanted to know.

“Lying about which part?" They were on the couch together now, a process achieved during one the black silences. There was pasta in the bedroom, achieved during an earlier cease-fire and useless since Duo hadn’t followed him in. There was beer on the table, beer Duo wouldn’t drink and Trowa had drunk too much of, accomplishing only a lack of inhibition that was bound to be unhealthy.

"Every part in your little book where you complained about my job. About all the looks you used to give me when I'd say I have to go away for a while."

"The rules are different for you and me," Trowa said.

"Why?"

"Because you're worth more."

Duo breathed in deeply on that. He asked, "Who decided that?" and his voice was getting scratchy with how many times they’d come near to this and missed.

"I did.” Trowa checked, and found all the bottles empty and sticky-smelling. “You're free to differ, but that's my take on it."

"Yeah? Your take is wrong-headed and irresponsible, so fuck you."

He hadn’t expected Duo to agree, even if they’d been calm– sober– not fighting. And he was getting used to hearing the ‘fuck you’ bit. Duo had always undervalued himself, sold himself off like it was going out of style, tolerated that aching hunger in himself like it was fate that did it, not life. Maybe it was time to steer Duo to bed.

"What exactly is your problem here? That you were fooled? It was critical that you were.” Duo’s face turned away, and Trowa exhaled. “Sorry that offends you."

"You're not fucking sorry! You're never fucking sorry about anything!"

"One of the many reasons you're worth more than I am."

Oh, Duo was furious. "So it was always academic, pointing out how stupid it was for me to work for them after the war?"

"No, Duo, I meant it. It was stupid for me to work for them too." He wanted another beer, but he wasn’t a funny drunk and knew it. "Who recruited you?"

He must have jumped tracks, and Duo hovered hesitating for a minute. "Some guy named Derek," he responded slowly.

"Derek. And what'd he offer?"

"I don't know, I don't remember. Company car and health benefits."

"Une recruited me." That, to him, should carry some weight. "She offered not to investigate what I did before and right after the war too closely."

"You've never been scared of Preventers finding out–" Scoffing, but stopping short then when he realised just why Trowa had never been scared of it.

He looked at Duo, a long, steady look. "I'm not a victim,” he said. “I'm just explaining."

He watched Duo absorb it like poison through the skin, watched him compare what he’d known and what Trowa called fact in the honest inky dark. Duo took longer about it than he had to, and Trowa wondered what avalanche was coming, what new combustion was being hidden by the sudden reasonableness. The longer it went on, he thought about Une forcing him into meeting her, thought about her laying it all out like she’d just crushed him under her heel and didn’t give a damn whether he agreed or not, thought about the probability that he was going to see that side of her again, as soon as she got through deciding whether to let him swing or dump him down a dark hole before he could fuck up the operation.

"Were you ever asked by anyone to keep an eye on me?"

Not formally, and he’d have declined anyway. "No,” he said, and wondered if Duo believed him. “I did that because I needed to." Duo held up a hand between them. "You asked."

The hand hovered anyway for a minute. Trowa wondered if he was crying. He could never tell from Duo’s voice; Duo was that good at masking his emotions, if he didn’t like them. And he wondered when Duo had become like that, because he hadn’t been that way when they were fifteen.

"Do you respect what I do?" Duo asked finally.

"Yeah, Duo. I always have."

"I've never felt like you did." Duo rubbed at his forehead, pulled a thread of hair loose with twitching fingers. "I felt like you respected my reasons but that you always thought I was– I don't know. Being duped or something."

"I never thought you were stupid." The way Duo’s mind worked and sometimes didn’t work left him frustrated. He wrapped his fingers around Duo’s wrist and held on when Duo pulled away, forcing Duo to offer up his pulse. "Maybe you cared too much, but you aren't stupid."

"Cared too much?" Duo’s voice was thin, his blood jumping under Trowa’s thumb. "That's what you thought while you were keeping your book updated, huh?"

"What do you think I thought?"

"I don't know, Trowa. I don't know how people who do what you did think. I don't know what's going on in your head that you think it's acceptable, that it's okay to spend your time following me around and cleaning up my messes like you've got a flipping mandate from God."

"That's the part that drives you nuts, isn't it? Not that I kept that log, or joined the Preventers, but that I haven't confessed every fucking thought and reason. And that you can't figure it out on your own. I did those things for the same reason I do everything. I wanted to."

"That's not good enough. It's not a good enough reason."

"It's all I've got. It's how I operate." He let Duo go, because he’d forgotten the reason for holding on in the first place. "I'm just not that complex."

"It's not fucking good enough, you can't just walk around doing whatever you want to do! You can't just– walk around doing whatever you want, it's not right to do that. That's not what people do!"

"It's not what you do."

"Damn right!"

"I do. Okay? I do what I want. It's just not that hard to get. And you used to get it, Duo. When'd you stop?"

Duo sat staring at him, and Trowa thought very hard about moving, pouncing on him, kicking him to the floor and fucking him through it. He even half started it, putting his hand on the side of Duo’s neck to make him shiver, and he moved closer with full intentions of kissing him, and Duo was surprised enough, pissed off enough to let him get the jump, and he got as far as the brush of their lips before he knew he wasn’t going to do it. Couldn’t do it to Duo right now. Even if it saved them from the rest of this argument, it would end everything else.

Duo’s breath was warm and small on his cheek. "I thought you'd grow out of it,” he whispered, brittle and breaking.

He pressed his nose into Duo’s temple. "I know what you hoped."

"I don't mean to be a moralising asshole."

"You're allowed. It's not your nature to accept–" He struggled for the right way to frame it. "Complacency," he said shortly, not liking what it said about him, not sure if it was true.

"I'm not worth more than you."

"If you say so."

"Fucking hell, Trowa."

Fucking hell was right. Because Duo thought he got to argue both sides at once, because Duo argued just to air his issues, to fill a void Trowa hadn’t put there and wasn’t responsible for fixing. When Duo moved, so did Trowa; grabbed Duo by the arm and wrenched him down before he even got anywhere. He was just drunk enough to voluntarily let go of his patience, be a little brutal holding Duo down. Duo went tense and outraged and weirdly pliant, and Trowa knew it was wrong and did it anyway. He didn’t care and didn’t want to, was sick of Duo walking out on him, was sick of Duo picking fights and running from the words. He wanted Duo to find some fucking stomach, and he said as much, and this time he did kiss Duo, mashing their mouths together and pinching his jaw in place hard enough to raise white skin.

"Let’s admit what this is really about,” he said directly. Duo all but vibrated against him and Trowa thought about Heero hitting Duo and didn’t let go. “It's not that I'm some kind of fucked-up stalker. It's that you think this means I think you're incompetent. You need me to cover your ass because you sure as hell can't, right? Okay, so if that's such a shitty position to be in, why'd you call me when you got arrested? And what was the first thing you said? Something about needing me, wasn't it?” Duo pushed to free himself, but didn’t resist long when Trowa refused. "Don't go because you're mad. Don’t go because you’re fucking mad at me.”

Duo’s eyes closed. "There are a lot of reasons in the air to go, Trowa, and mad isn't even top of the list."

"Are there any reasons left to stay?"

"I love you," Duo said, very readily, and looked up to say it, met his eyes squarely. "I just... am not sure how much I really know about you. And that's more important suddenly than it used to be."

Whatever violence he was feeling wasn’t going away. Trowa sat up, and finally let Duo go. He wasn’t surprised when Duo fled for the bedroom, but he sure was pissed. He followed, got hung up at the doorway before remembering he owned the whole fucking condo. The pasta on the bureau was cold and abandoned, stomach-turning. Trowa pushed it to the side. "You know the important things about me," he persisted. “When you’re not being a son of a bitch.”

"No. I didn't. So I have to ask what else I don't know."

Trowa wrenched open the top drawer of the bureau and pulled out a roll of black socks. “You fold them wrong,” he said, and pulled the roll apart to fold them in half. “It drives me nuts. The rest you should already know."

Duo looked skyward. It wasn’t meant to be dramatic, but it was, and Trowa threw the socks at him. "The important things are fucking apparent, Duo."

"You say that. You've said that over and over lately. But they're not, Tro. I've spent years digging and digging on you, and I still don't know what you're thinking, what you're feeling. I swear to God I'm not lying when I tell you that I don't know."

He turned his back with an effort and stared a death-wish at the pasta. "If I tell you now you'll wonder if it was another lie."

"That can't be your excuse for the rest of your life."

"Was there ever a time when you wouldn't have thought it was a lie?"

They were fucking over, and this was fucking pointless.

Duo’s voice was quiet, almost gone. "There was never a time when I thought you could mean it."

"So what's the point of hammering this into the ground?"

"Good question, I guess." He heard Duo’s shaky exhale. "You know what makes me feel like total shit? That I thought something good was finally happening. That we were starting to– that everything was crap except this, and this was finally going right, going the way it should have gone all along."

He clenched his hands into fists on the smooth top of the bureau, halfway to beating it in and thinking he’d probably enjoy it. "I guess I don't get how that's changed, except for I'm a cop and not a criminal."

"You all but stalk me and bitch and moan in your little book about how dangerous _my_ job is? I can't tell you how guilty I felt every time I came home and you had that face on, like I'd done this on purpose, like I didn't value what we had here because I'd risk it like that. Giving me shit about the establishment and my martyr complex and giving what I don't owe, and the whole fucking time you're lying to me."

“The only thing I ever lied to you about was who cut my fucking paycheque. Well, I guess I’m not the only one clinging to double standards, am I?" He wasn’t drunk enough for this. Maybe there was no way to be drunk enough. He was tired. He was just as damn tired as Duo was, and he was going through all of it too, he’d stood there with Duo from almost the start and shouldered all of it voluntarily and Duo didn’t want to accept that it meant what it did when there was always _more_ to be squeezed out.

The next sound he heard was Duo getting the suitcase from under the bed. “I’m going home,” Duo said. “I need to go back to my apartment, I need to think."

Trowa picked up the pasta bowl and threw it through the window. The crash of breaking glass was horrendous, brilliant like a lightning strike, and then it was silent.

"Okay," Trowa said.

Duo’s eyes were as wide as they’d ever been, still in his shock as if he’d been frozen.

The drawer protested as he tried to open it. He found the jumper hiding in the back, buried under things he wore more often, all organised to Duo’s particular symptoms. Duo flinched, just slightly, when Trowa approached him with it, but let Trowa stuff his bare arms into the sleeves, pull the warm cashmere over his head. His waist was chilled when Trowa brushed it with his knuckles, quivered on an inhale when he flattened his palms to Duo’s ribs under the fabric. "It's cold in here," he explained briefly.

Duo’s hands shook as he pushed his hair out of his face. Then he did it again, and his hands stayed there, shaking. Trowa bent to peer into his eyes, and said, "If you run again, you won't come back."

"You make me have to go!" Duo cried.

"I guess I deserve it then."

He wasn’t entirely expecting Duo to wail off on him. Duo’s fists slammed into his chest, and he stumbled back, just barely keeping hold of the smaller man. "You didn't have to lie to me,” Duo snarled at him, pounding him frenetically. “You didn't have to lie to me!"

"Same as you didn't have to hide whoever you’re protecting from me." He caught Duo’s wrists in one hand and pulled him in tightly with the other. Duo was cold all over, shivering in the freezing air from the broken window. He pressed his lips to Duo’s hair. “And before you argue that neither of us follows orders all of the time, look; it had to be this way. And I'm sorry. I always knew that if you ever found out it would kill us. I guess it was stupid of me to think this wasn't inevitable."

Duo took a last limp punch, practically pinned to Trowa’s chest, and surrendered. Trowa wrapped both arms around him, and held him close.

"Tell me what to do," he whispered.

 

**

 

Heero’s parking lot was full but for one spot, and Wufei aimed his car at it before realising it was Heero’s anyway, reserved the building supervisor. He idled for a moment, then changed his mind and shut off the engine.

"Come inside," Heero said.

The building had that empty feel that complexes got, bedded down for the night and lit only by lonely yellowish lamps hidden behind pruned hedges half-dead from the season. They passed under shadow before entering the lobby, and Heero let him in first while unlocking his door. Wufei started to shrug free from his coat, and jumped when Heero moved behind him to help. He couldn’t quite summon up a comment about it, and settled for removing his shoes while Heero hung their jackets beside the door.

"You should have some tea," Wufei decided. “You’ll sleep better. No caffeine–“ Heero was still standing there, lost in his own home, a little tipsy and a lot uncertain. Wufei reached for equilibrium, and found it distressingly hard to reach.

“Tea,” Heero repeated eventually.

“I’m going to go home.” He side-stepped Heero, and took down his coat, slipping into it quickly and foregoing the buttons for the short walk to the car. “You’ll be– this is the worst time in the world to take a risk with you.”

Their mouths touched hesitantly. Heero was stiff with surprise, and Wufei was stiff with something like fear, or bitter anyway. He pulled back before Heero could either– catch fire or shove him off, and stuttered through "I'll pick you up at eight for work," before dodging to the door. He waited long enough for Heero to nod, and then he left, hurrying to his vehicle as fast as he could do without looking like he was running.


	8. Eight

They fucked. For hours. It seemed sometimes that was the only thing they could get right.

Later it would all make sense. Later, he’d be able to look back and understand that Duo had needed to not feel so damned used and impotent. That he needed to hurt Trowa back somehow, at least a little. And needed the responsibility of knowing he could. Did.

That was later, though. In the morning, Trowa didn’t know any of that, and all he felt was tired when he answered Addison’s eight-am call.

He rushed to grab the receiver before it woke Duo. Except he knocked over a picture frame on the side table that he hadn’t used to own, didn’t remember was there now that Duo was back and Decorating The House, and the clatter woke Duo when the phone hadn’t. Then he was answering the call, agreeing to an appointment he didn’t want, and watching Duo watch him across the bed, that tense line Trowa had spent all night trying to erase back in his mouth.

He hung up and righted the picture. It was one he didn’t remember taking, all five of them, and by coincidence he and Duo were standing together, their heads turned a little toward each other. "I have to take a shower and go meet with the attorneys," he said.

The bedroom was freezing. They’d taped some plastic over the broken window, but it didn’t keep out the cold, or the noise of delivery trucks and morning chatter. Duo pushed the duvet down and rubbed his eyes. “Just you?”

"Yeah. This time." Trowa stuck a leg out from the covers, and decided against the shower. He picked up the grey suit he’d worn yesterday from the floor and shrugged into the trousers. He glanced up at Duo as he buttoned the waist. "You could come if you wanted, but you look like shit, and I really don't need to hear it again how bad I am for you."

He imagined that Duo’s expression was accusatory. You are, it said. It was right. But he was only imagining it, because Duo wasn’t looking at him.

"You want doughnuts?” he asked. “From that shop across from the courthouse.”

Duo rolled onto his stomach and closed his eyes. “Muffins,” he answered. “It’s going to rain. Take the umbrella.”

 

**

 

“I don’t want out,” Trowa snapped quietly. “I never once wanted out. Have I actually been acting reluctant or did I miss a reprimand?”

“You stupid little man.” Une’s whisper could have scalded skin. “It’s bad enough that I had to deal with a botched arrest from your darling friends Yuy and Chang and whatever bullshit Maxwell parked in. To have every single one of you hip-deep in covering for each other– I am one step from stringing you up by your thumbs, Barton, and you can thank me for exercising the extreme restraint I’m showing in not throwing you to the wolves. If you so much as blink out of turn today, you can enjoy the hospitality of the general population in a high-security prison of my choice.” The door banged open, but Une didn’t look away from him. “This is my show now,” she added intently. “Understood, Agent?”

Judge Padilla entered first, shedding her robe as she stalked to the chair at the head of their table. Une rose smoothly, tugging the hem of her jacket into place. The two women exchanged nods, and Trowa reluctantly levered himself to his feet. “Your Honour,” he mumbled.

“Everyone sit,” Padilla instructed, and obeyed herself, settling heavily. “I have to be back in court in half an hour and I want at least five minutes of that to be devoted to caffeine.”

The room crowded quickly. Addison had come alone to represent Duo’s lawyers, but the ADA had brought an assistant, and there were three people Trowa had never seen before, all suited in black and wearing identical badges of government office. They didn’t all fit at the table, and Trowa didn’t feel particularly moved to give up his seat. Two of the government flunkies were left milling in front of the door.

Padilla struggled with the tall pile of manilla folders she’d brought with her, and finally opened one from the middle. "We're here to discuss the subpoena from Council regarding the testimony of the witness Trowa Barton.” She searched the table for him, and propped her chin on her fist. “Mr Barton, you're an undercover agent for the Preventers?"

Une was nodding. Trowa said, "Yes, ma’am, for the last six years."

The man sitting across from Trowa interrupted, rising slightly as he spoke. "James Walen, your Honour, representing the Ministry of Defence.” He tapped the table significantly. “Given the special circumstances, it is impossible for Barton to testify without limiting his usefulness and trespassing on the legality of his confidentiality."

"Which trespasses on my client's right to present all witnesses with exculpatory evidence," Addison shot back pointedly. The look he shot at Trowa was inclusive of Une, and it wasn’t happy. “If it has to be restated, we are here because my client is on trial.”

Une’s plucked eyebrows made perfect arches. "Then perhaps you should explore other potential evidence," she said.

Addison put his life on the line by ignoring her in favour of the judge. "Your Honour,” he said. He took the paper copy of Trowa’s log from his briefcase and laid it out prominently on the table. “Trowa Barton's journal offers incontrovertible alibis for at least four of the murders, and there’s certainly an argument to be made that if Agent Maxwell couldn’t have committed four of them, there’s more than reasonable doubt that he committed any of them. It's insane to think that the State could mandate that the jury not be allowed to hear that."

Walen waved that off. "I'm not asking that the journal be suppressed,” he said. “Only its author's identity. Director Une will tell you that he made those entries while under her orders, which means any product of that investigation is protected under International Law until the investigation is concluded and its conclusions declassified."

Addison was already shaking his head. "If state-sponsored espionage were sacrosanct, we wouldn’t have the string of case law that supports specific exceptions to the rule. Hence our subpoena. Without knowing what the credibility of the author is, how can the jury be expected to believe the content of the journal? Even a government official can be compelled to reveal his or her identity when the Court deems it necessary in pursuit of the truth."

Une reached for the journal, holding it up. "This document," she said, "is part of a Preventers investigation. A study initiated by my office and conducted under my direct influence. Will your jury find me a credible witness?"

Padilla at least seemed thrown. So did the ADA, who jumped in for the first time, stammering to get out his objection. "There's no way you can allow a third party to testify about the journal, your Honour!"

"And why not?" Une asked. Trowa shifted uneasily, sensing that the personal cost of each of Une’s intercessions was going to skyrocket. "Surely you've allowed situations like this when an undercover police officer's identity, and indeed his life, might be in peril?" Une returned the log to the table, her varnished fingernails tapping lightly on the top page. "Prosecution witnesses, I imagine, however. Wouldn't that be correct? But protecting a Defence witness wouldn't quite satisfy your own personal and political agendas, would it?"

God. Trowa leaned back in his chair, raising a hand to cover the smile that threatened. When she was like this, Une almost reminded him of Duo.

“You’ve made your point,” Padilla said. The two women locked gazes; Une was at her icy best, cool and composed, but Padilla was a match for her. “We have enough accusations flying free in here,” Padilla added shortly. “I’ll thank you to leave unfounded ones silent.”

Addison sat forward, smoothing his tie nervously. He said, "I don't find it reassuring that the Director of the Preventers is offering to testify that she ordered Mr Barton to track my client. It's remarkably prejudicial, your Honour."

The judge sighed. “I have to agree." She leaned back in her chair, and her eyes fell on Trowa. Trowa met her gaze.

“I’ve read the journal,” she said at last. “It’s a giant can of worms. I find it difficult to believe that the Preventers and the Ministry are so eager to provide cover for an operative who obviously took advantage of a private relationship to spy on another agent who had no idea he was under investigation. But morality and legality are two separate issues, so let’s concentrate on what we do know. Director Une, Mr Walen, I am sensitive to the dangerous nature of your service, and I have a good idea of how damaging public attention to this trial would be. With that understood, I am still extremely reluctant to trample the rights of an individual in the name of the greater good." She searched her folders again, briefly, before giving up. “Mr Lebreton, have your office amended the indictment to reflect this discovery?”

“Yes, your Honour,” the ADA answered promptly. “We’re only proceeding on six counts.”

“Your Honour,” Addison protested.

"I see no legal reason to suppress the journal, and I cannot legally prevent either Defense or Prosecution from summoning Director Une as a witness regarding its authenticity.” Padilla closed her folders and pushed them aside. “What I can do is advise you, Mr Addison, to appeal the writ to the Higher Court preventing you from summoning Agent Barton. You won't win, and it won't help your client now, but it would be grounds for an appeal in the event of a guilty verdict." She stood. "You have your ruling. And in the future, lady and gentlemen, you can consider yourself without a friend from this office. I don't like these kinds of power plays in my courtroom. It seems to me that there was some very shady business here, and I will be watching everyone very closely."

Une smiled like the Madonna. Trowa licked his lips, and stood with everyone else. "Thank you, Judge,” Une said. She extended her hand, and Padilla shook it briefly. “Be assured, we're not unaware of the sensitivity of your position in this matter as well."

Addison lingered as the crowd filtered from the room. “It’s not great,” he said to Trowa, glancing uncomfortably at Une. “It’s good we got the number of charges reduced. It’s bad that we’ve got less on our side to prove he’s not guilty of any of them.” He stuffed the copy of Trowa’s journal back into his briefcase, and snapped it closed. “Are you and Duo still...”

The question caught him by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. He nodded once, sharply, keeping his eyes level. “Yeah,” he answered. “He’s still with me.”

“Right. I’ll let you deliver the news then, okay?” Addison clapped him on the shoulder, and Trowa tried not to roll his eyes about it. “Director Une, it was– educational, meeting you.”

“Freak,” Trowa muttered as the door closed behind him.

Une didn’t find it funny. There was no trace of amusement in her face as she gathered her coat from the rack, but she let him help her into it. It wasn’t going to be pretty, he decided, but for all her threats, she wasn’t going to have him dragged out back to be shot, either.

She faced him, just level to his height in her heels. "I cannot imagine what possessed you,” she said finally, “and I'm not terribly sure I want to know, but you can use this time to reassure me that this behaviour is done with."

"Which behaviour?” Trowa perched on the edge of the table and folded his arms over his chest. “The fucking him, or the keeping track of him?"

"I'm glad you retain your sense of humour. How's Duo doing?"

Knowing Une, it could be some kind of fucked-up trick question, or genuine concern from a commander who occasionally remembered she was a thinking, feeling human being. Either way, Trowa didn’t feel particularly patient with the question. "He's tired,” he said flatly. “He needs his job back. He needs his fucking life back. This is bullshit."

"Not a condition you've helped to alleviate." Une wrapped a white scarf about her neck, and pulled white leather gloves from her coat pocket. "Lying for you is one thing. Allowing you to continue is another. So understand me now. This will stop."

“I'm not ditching him." He shifted, dropped his arms back to his sides. "Thanks for covering for me."

Une donned her gloves with quick tugs. "You cannot possibly be deluded that I did this for you."

"Yeah, yeah; spin control. Not to mention losing two good ops."

"That's right. Maxwell's done with Preventers." She set her purse on the table next to him, and leaned over him. "You, on the other hand, can look forward to a long and busy career with us."

Trowa licked his lips deliberately, but she didn’t rise to the bait. "Why do you hold on so hard?"

"I make it a policy never to lose a war." Une’s smile was tiny, and frosty.

"Exhausting, isn't it?"

"You're the one who doesn't want out."

"Not really, no.” Trowa showed another of his cards, and added, “I like the way things are."

"Then do yourself a little favour and stop working quite so hard to botch it up."

"In other words, you think I'm a psychotic stalker too." He hated that she’d even gone there. So she was thinking the same thing everyone else was– it wasn’t her business. It was no-one’s business but his, and all these extra fingers in his pie were just messing things up. He gave up the rest of his hand, laid it all out there. Quietly, he said, "I want him to have his life back. I'll do whatever it takes."

Her eyebrows shot up, and she straightened away from him. "Sacrificial lamb isn't a good look for you, Trowa," she snapped. “And it’s not what I pay you for.”

“I’m asking you to do something for him.”

For Une, the hesitation was an eternity. In reality, it was only a few seconds. She picked up her purse and belted her coat, but Trowa wasn’t distracted. He moved closer to her, to keep her eyes on him.

"You have until the end of this trial,” she told him at last. “Go home, Barton,” she added, and opened the door. “Try to convince Duo he's safe with you."

 

**

 

Heero wrapped the plastic handles of the bag tighter between his fingers, securing the weight that dragged at his wrist. He punched the buzzer again, and knocked to be sure. He was just shifting sideways to peer through the window when the latch clicked, and Duo opened the door.

Heero rubbed his neck when it went hot. “Maybe I should have called.”

Duo turned pink. He tugged at the hem of his boxer shorts, trying to pull them down his thighs. “Uh, hi,” he said. He smudged his tangled hair out of his face, and used the door to shield himself. "No, I was being lazy. I'm sorry. Uh– come in."

Heero hesitated a moment, then obeyed. Duo nudged the door shut behind him, and Heero faced him, holding out his bag. "Mikans,” he explained. “Wufei said you like them."

"Thanks. I do.” Duo took the bag, and Heero followed the movement of his fingers as they looped loose dark hairs behind a blushing ear. “That's really thoughtful."

"He's worried about you." So was Heero, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit to that. He put his hands in his coat pockets, clenching around his keys. "You look like shit."

"Yeah, so I hear." Duo took half a step forward, then rocked back. "Um, I'll go put on some pants,” he said. “Want to start some tea?"

"Yeah, I can do that." He took back the bag when Duo thrust it out. Duo slipped past him toward the bedroom, and Heero went into the kitchen. He put the oranges on the table and took down the kettle from the stove.

He heard the soft scrape of bare feet on the tile right before Duo spoke. "How are you, Heero?” he asked.

Heero flipped on the tap. "All right. You?"

“I’m all right.” Duo joined him at the counter. He’d donned blue jeans, but the black sweater had stayed. He smelled like sleep, and– sex. Heero swallowed, and turned away to search the cupboards. It took a few tries to find the tea; Duo liked things kept in a certain order, but Trowa’s kitchen had a different arrangement. Heero found a bag of rooibos next to the cooking oil. "I think you should get out of here," he said finally.

"And go where?" Duo answered listlessly.

"I don't know. Home. Somewhere." Heero filled the fruit bowl with the mikans, carefully turning all of them to find the ripest two. "This isn't... healthy."

Duo sat, slumping low in his chair. "Sweetheart, please.” He threw teabags into the mugs and folded his arms sullenly over his chest. “Not right now. I know this is coming out of friendship, but it's not particularly helpful at the moment."

The electric kettle grew louder as the water came to the boil. Heero took it off the burner when it began to steam, and filled the mugs. He was sure that Duo was doing the thing he did so often with Heero– put distance between them. Push Heero away. He knew that Duo wanted his friendship, had in fact worked very hard with very little encouragement to get it, but he wanted it on his own terms, not Heero’s.

Maybe he had a right to dictate the terms just now. Heero hadn’t been acting like a friend when he’d assumed Duo was capable of executing Vasquez in that scuzzy warren of an apartment downtown. And Wufei had made his point when he’d accused Heero of waiting for Duo to come to him, when he knew very well that Duo had enough to think about right now without worrying after the state of this relationship. Given the state of another relationship that Heero could only believe was a deliberate, self-destructive mistake. Duo knew better than to expect anything from Trowa. Trowa was selfish, and emotionally unavailable, cold. All the things that Heero was himself. So, really, he didn’t have anything to offer Duo right now, either, and he should worry that Duo had even let him in the door, even if he didn’t want to talk.

He had tried before to imagine what must have gone through Duo’s mind when he’d come across that body and decided to cover for whomever had put it there. He could only think of the most nebulous reasons, had never had an acute understanding of Duo’s mind; only a recognition that Duo followed his emotions, he did it with his whole heart.

Duo read his silence, his eyes keen and steely. "What?” he asked provocatively. “What am I supposed to say to you?"

Heero pretended to sip his tea, but it was only an attempt to hide his reaction. Duo was glaring at him cold-eyed and steady, that boiling temper that was always just on the edge ready to spring. Heero licked his lips, and set his cup on the table. "This was a mistake," he acknowledged. "I shouldn't have bothered you."

"Fucking hell, you bastard."

“You could have come to me," he retorted. "Why don't you ever come to me?"

Duo carefully shifted his tea, rotating the cup and moving it milimetres forward in some arcane strategy. "Because in all the years we've known each other, every conversation that even scrapes the edge of personal starts with 'I shouldn't have done this.'” Duo flattened his hands to the table. “How am I supposed to take that, Heero? I feel like I make you scared of me."

"You don't make me scared." Nervous, yes. Inarticulate.

Duo released his gaze with an almost audible click. He reached out to nudge Heero's mug with a knuckle. "Drink your tea."

Heero lifted the mug and sipped, burning his upper lip and gums. “I should have been aware."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"I should do something."

"I'm already doing something." Duo’s pale lips twitched up in a small smile that didn’t make it to his eyes.

"Getting trashed. I can't let that happen."

"You can.” Duo made it a command, his eyes cold again. “You have before. I know you can square with it when it serves a greater good."

"What greater good comes out of you going to jail for a killer?" he snapped.

Duo was not quick with a rejoinder, and Heero was troubled. Duo took a mikan from Heero’s arrangement, bringing it to his nose to smell. He rubbed the skin gently.

"He gets a chance to change, maybe.”

Heero picked up his tea again, to occupy his hands. “Will he?"

"I hope so."

The possibility stretched bleakly in front of him. "What if he doesn't?"

"Heero, just–" Duo’s eyes stayed low on the orange. "Let me believe that this means something."

There was a soft yearning in that that made him ache.

Duo sighed. "Why'd you come over today?"

He sipped the tea. It was cooler now. There seemed to be a cold draft in the condo, from the open bedroom door, fresh air from an unseasonably open window. "I don't know,” he admitted slowly. “I just– hate this." And suddenly that was true. Whatever he’d thought might happen if he came wasn’t going to, but somehow he’d failed to anticipate it.

"Heero..." Duo was looking at him when he glanced up. "Heero, why... fuck." Duo laughed then.

"I don't want anything bad to happen. Tell me what to do to stop it."

"I'm not,” Duo said flatly, “the person to be asking."

"I'm asking you. You always know."

"I don't. I don't always know anything."

"You have to." The tea was the same shade of reddish-brown as Duo’s hair, an earthy fragrant chestnut. Heero swirled the last inch of it in his mug. “He makes you happy?"

Duo laughed again. It had a watery sound. He covered his mouth with his hand and stared at the wall.

Heero almost touched him. Not his hand. His cheek. His neck. He pulled back just before he made the contact, shoved back his chair and vacated the table. His heart was pounding. He felt sick with adrenaline, almost shaky with the force of it.

"I should go," he managed. "I just wanted you to know... I'm trying."

Duo clasped his hands in his lap. He nodded.

"And if you need to talk–" Though that was the last thing he really wanted. He’d been clear about that three years ago, when Duo had moved in with Trowa after barely a week of anything that qualified as relationship. Risky, Heero had said, and Duo had tossed him a smile full of excitement and happiness and agreed. In some dark place he went sometimes, on nights that were particularly bad, he’d stare up at the ceiling and something Duo said, some flash of that smile, it was like a nightlight in a dark room, and he’d remember Duo had a craving for toxic men, and remember too that if– Duo were ever his, he wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with it. That knowledge had always been enough to stop him before.

He cleared his throat. "Are we friends?"

Duo inhaled deeply. "Yes."

He felt for his keys in his pocket again. "Good, okay."

Duo laughed again, not any more steadily. He tried to fix his hair, but the side of his palm scraped his cheek instead. It took several seconds for Heero to register what that was about. He’d never seen Duo do it before.

His hand shook as he extended it. Duo’s hair whispered against his finger as he brushed it out of Duo’s eyes. "You never cut it when you should," he whispered.

"Oh, Jesus." Duo knocked his hand aside, his eyes wet as he glared up. “This isn’t the best time for our annual 'wish we'd screwed while we had the chance' dance."

"That's- not what I was doing."

Then Duo was on his feet, and Heero swayed back to avoid touching him. Duo violently threw away his tea in the sink, spattering the splash guard. "I don't know anything,” he snarled. “I just don't know, Heero. I don't have it figured out."

"Be still a minute,” Heero demanded. "Just– still." He rubbed his palm on his trousers; he was sweating. He touched Duo, the small of his back. "You don't have to know,” he comforted softly. “And I wasn't making a pass. I know you're with Trowa."

Duo’s adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. He gripped the edge of the sink tightly. "Okay."

He smelled so intimate. Bed and hair and sex and Trowa and he was all anger and bone, the bumps of his spine under Heero’s palm, the hard curve of his waist. He was taut and alive when Heero turned him and gingerly embraced him.

"Friends do this," he tried to explain. Duo was all so solid, the jut of his hipbones, his sharp knees, the soft skin of his neck. It wasn’t enough to see the pulse in his throat; his fingers itched for it. "It doesn't mean I want anything more."

He felt Duo’s shaky inhale. This is the worst time to take a risk with you, Wufei had said to him, just last night, and Heero hadn’t understood where that was coming from until his own hand was moving, finding a soft rub of stubble just barely growing in on Duo’s jaw just before he kissed him, awkward and with a hunger he hadn’t known he had in him. The first touch was like electricity, an adrenaline rush he hadn’t felt since the night he’d aimed his beam canon at Dekim Barton’s fortress and known he was going to die in his Gundam. Everything went narrow and rushed and deathly important.

Duo jerked away. “Oh,” he whispered.

Heero waited to be hit. He wasn’t. He cupped Duo’s cheek, and kissed him again. He felt resistance for just a moment, and then Duo’s jaw relaxed and let him in. Heero pressed him back against the counter, so aroused that the rub of his own jeans was a visceral torture.

Duo pulled away again. "There are so– “ Heero stopped him with his lips. “Many reasons not–“

"We don't have to." He sucked on Duo’s lower lip, his chin, his throat.

"Heero." Fingers in his hair drew his head up, and stormy eyes connected with his. Duo’s voice shook. "Tell me you understand."

He dropped his head to Duo’s shoulder. It was hard to think with Duo staring at him, with the feel of their hips crushed so tightly together. They were almost breathing together, and the pressure of Duo’s hands on his skull was like the only thing holding him down.

Duo wasn’t asking him. He was asking Trowa. And Trowa wasn’t there to give them permission.

He brushed his lips down Duo’s neck, to the hem of the soft sweater. He hooked a finger in the fabric and pulled it down enough to kiss the hollow space above Duo’s collarbone. "This is his, isn't it?" He kissed the inside of Duo’s elbow as he raised Duo’s arms over his head. Peeling the sweater off him was like peeling Trowa away, too, discarding him to the linoleum and kicking him out of the way. Duo’s bare skin was pale and tight, breaking out in gooseflesh in the cool air, at the touch of Heero’s hands. He climbed the path of Duo’s torso from the waistband of his jeans to his pecs, tracing the faded blue of the gang tattoo over his heart, over pink pebbled nipples. This time Duo leaned forward, and they kissed again. He snagged his fingers in Duo’s braid, loose and tangled and soft, and Duo released a trembling exhale against his mouth as he wove between the plaits and clutched tightly.

Then it moved quickly. Duo undid each button of his shirt from collar to bottom and kept going down to his jeans, wrenching at the zipper and pulling from the pockets. Heero mimicked him, catching the snap on Duo’s pants and fitting his palm inside to cup Duo’s buttock beneath his underwear. He didn’t want to fuck against the sink like– Duo was his friend, too important, too beautiful and clever for something so unforgivably base. Duo’s stomach was hard and velvety as Heero kissed it, his thighs warm as Heero pulled his jeans down. He was so tired of living in winter.

“Please say I won't fuck you up, doing this."

Heero shucked his shoes and socks and rose. "You won't hurt me. We’ll be all right."

Duo squirmed onto the edge of the counter, and Heero settled between his legs. He tasted sweat when he caught Duo’s shoulder with his lips, then his earlobe. Their groins met, and Heero couldn’t take the intensity of Duo’s eyes on him while their hips rolled together. He wrapped Duo close to him, felt the concave curve of Duo’s belly against his and the jut of his shoulderblades out of his back. He trapped their erections in his hand and arched Duo close against his chest. Moisture smeared his own stomach and he didn’t know which of them it belonged to, but Duo moaned softly, and Heero shuddered. It was all movement and the grip of Duo’s legs around his hips.

He wanted it differently. He wanted Duo on a bed with him, their bed, he wanted what he’d imagined, putting himself inside Duo, Duo putting himself in Heero, melting together, he wanted that elusive sense of wholeness he’d been missing his entire life– it should be elemental, natural, perfect. This wasn’t going to be any of those things. He couldn’t ask that. Duo had lost so much of who he was already, and it was at least partly Heero’s fault for letting him, forcing him, not trusting him. Maybe this would be enough. Satisfying. Profound. Without asking a large sacrifice from Duo.

But it wasn't. He found the presence of mind to breathe. Duo’s eyes were open when he looked. He grasped Duo’s hips, damp with exertion now, and balanced a hand against the cabinets at shoulder-height as he ground against Duo. He brushed Duo’s hair from his face. “Duo?”

He didn’t imagine the hesitation. Duo’s mouth was open. His cheeks were flushed, his body radiating heat, but his eyes said everything.

Heero swallowed. "You don't want this with me."

Duo couldn’t answer immediately. "I do," he managed. "Just–"

"You love Trowa." Heero closed his eyes. "I understand."

Duo’s hand pressed gently against his cheek. In a helpless little whisper, he said, "I'm so so sorry."

He shook his head ‘no’. "I knew better. I didn't come here for this in the first place." Maybe he had. He didn’t know any more.

It was the shift of Duo’s thighs wrapped around his hips, the accidental rub of his cock over Heero’s. He’d been closer to the edge than he realised. His vision went white and his hearing shorted out. He came back to intense mortification, and Duo stuttering heartbreaking apologies in his ear.

He licked his lips. "I loved you," he rasped. "Maybe I will a while longer."

Duo’s breath hitched. His cheek came to rest against Heero’s neck, and it was wet.

"I think you should let go now." He shifted away carefully. He felt cold and shaky, soiled. He reached for the towel hanging on the oven handle, and fumbled awkwardly as he wiped his semen from Duo’s abdomen. He kept his eyes on the task, not on Duo himself, willing the tightness in his throat to disappear. When Duo was cleaned, he wiped himself, then stepped into his jeans. He wadded the towel and stuffed it into his pocket. Trowa would come back eventually, and he didn’t want to leave evidence. Didn’t want Trowa to be mad at Duo.

Duo accepted his sweater when Heero held it out, but didn’t put it on. He held Heero’s fingers.

"I've got to go." Duo nodded jerkily. "Sorry," Heero said, and he was. It took immense willpower to brush his lips over Duo’s again and keep it at just a kiss. Duo’s hand was warm around his. He used his sleeve to dab the streak from Duo’s cheek, careful of the button in the cuff. "Don't."

Duo tossed his head to shake his hair from his eyes. "Yeah."

"It's going to be fine."

Duo wiped his own face. "Promise?"

"Yeah. I promise."

He let himself out, and walked alone to his car.

 

**

 

Trowa unlocked the door and let himself in, juggling the box of doughnuts and his coat and the keys. Duo was sitting on the couch, hunched forward over his knees.

"Hey," Trowa said. He dropped the box onto the coffee table. “Blueberry-banana muffin for you, and chocolate-glaze-sprinkle doughnuts for me.” He detoured to the kitchen and removed the bottle of apple juice from the fridge. The oranges in the fruit bowl surprised him. “Did you shop?” he called.

“No.” Duo had his thumbnail firmly between his teeth when Trowa emerged again. "Trowa..."

"What?” He unscrewed the bottle cap and drank. Duo didn’t protest, and that was when Trowa decided there was something more going on than could be explained by yesterday. "What's wrong?"

Duo finally took his hand out of his mouth. "Heero came over."

"Yeah?” That had to be comfortable, Trowa thought. He sat, and Duo’s eyes followed him down. “He hit you again?" he assumed.

Duo gripped his hands between his knees. "There's no excuse for it,” he said. “We kissed. We did more than kissing."

His first thought was that he’d only been gone four hours. Only thought. Four hours, it flashed on repeat through his brain. He swallowed a large mouthful of juice, and set the bottle down. "Did you fuck him?"

"No." Duo stared at him. Four hours. And then a barrage of images he knew from the inside out, Duo sprawled out underneath him, Duo laughing with sleepy sexy eyes, Duo fucking himself without giving a damn what he looked like doing it.

"Did you blow him?" Trowa asked. Duo shook his head, a sharp negating motion. "Uh huh. He blew you?"

"No. No, it wasn't like that, but–"

"Look," Trowa interrupted harshly. "If you have to tell me, then spit it out. Because this is torture."

"I shouldn't have even let him in the door. I'm sorry, Trowa. I should have sent him on his fucking way."

He took an aimless step in retreat. "What'd the little fucker do to you?" Duo had his arms crossed over his chest now in a protective gesture that could have been about Trowa and could have been about God Almighty punishing sinners, but none of it was computing. "You fooled around but you didn't fuck. Okay." He clutched the cap in his hand, the dig of the plastic ring in his palm grounding him. "Well, hell. I guess I deserved that."

Duo stood. "Don't close down on me. Please, Jesus, Trowa, don't shut down, tell me what you're feeling."

"Are you just looking for an excuse to run or are you hoping I'll throw you out?” He clenched his jaw and drew a breath deep from his gut. “I'm not going to do that. If you still want out... you can go after the trial is over and you've been acquitted."

He felt Duo come closer and stop in front of him. He didn’t quite have it in him to look yet, but he felt it.

"I don't want out," Duo said raggedly. "I don't want out, asshole."

He grabbed Duo and forced his face up. He meant it to be hard, and claiming, acidic enough to somehow burn the taste of Heero out of Duo’s mouth, but it wasn’t. It was as clarifying as throwing himself into freezing ocean water. Duo tilted with him, his spine curving where Trowa bent him back, and he thought– maybe Duo might believe it if I say it now. Maybe I believe it too.

He didn’t, but he held Duo close and closed his eyes.


	9. Nine

“Well, Senator Florian’s not the only thing to have had a little work done in the last two years,” Relena said.

Abardale laughed heartily at that. “Florian aside, the State House redecorating budget was astronomical. Sixteen thousand on seasonal greenery? Twice that on drapery!”

“And all of it hideous,” Relena guessed.

The red light over the door behind them went out with a short buzz to announce the end of session. Pages exited first, propping open the doors for the committee filtering out. The Cabinet came out in a clump, and Relena waved to catch the attention of a blond head caught in the middle.

Quatre immediately detached from the group and came toward her, a wide smile of surprise on his face. "Why hello, Mr Winner,” she said warmly. “Just the man I was hoping to catch."

"That makes me the luckiest man in the building," Quatre retorted lightly. He grinned as he cupped her elbow and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Senator Abardale, please excuse me, but I have to steal this lovely young lady from you." He barely waited for a response, drawing her to a Georgian settle placed beneath a window swathed in the new turquoise jacquard drapes. Quatre stroked her knuckles with his thumb. “What brought you all the way to L1?” he asked her.

She covered his hand with hers, and pressed it between her palms. "Actually, I was hoping for a few moments alone with you."

"Oh. Of course. My office is just down the hall."

She shook her head, preventing him from standing. "Can you get away for the afternoon?"

His pale eyebrows rose. It made him look like he had when they’d first met, young, earnest, so concerned. "Is something wrong?"

She shrugged a little. "Please?"

"For you, absolutely." He waved for one of the aides lingering in the hallway, and got a girl in a thick pair of glasses. “Sachiko, I need to leave. I'll call when I know how soon I can get back."

The girl’s dark eyes went wide. “Minister, you have back-to-back meetings all–“

“This is non-negotiable,” Quatre said firmly. He stood, and Relena rose as well. Sachiko seemed to recognise her then, and her eyes widened even more. Relena offered a saucy wink, and tucked her hand into Quatre’s elbow.

Quatre guided her to the door with a hand on the small of her back, and held it open for her while she passed through. A black-suited security guard detached from the wall and drifted after them out of earshot.

"Now I know something is up,” Quatre said, “because you haven't even given me that look yet. What is it that you need to cover my absence with what will no doubt be gossip gold?"

She paused on the steps to kiss his cheek. “You're wonderful, Quatre."

He hesitated visibly; then he manoeuvered her back against the brass railing, his hands cupping her waist tentatively. The slight rasp of stubble on his chin made the soft brush of his lips more exciting. Her heart actually beat harder as his lips moved over hers. She felt flushed and almost effervescent when he let her go, and stepped away.

“In public,” she said, almost steadily. “My, my.”

They dodged the amused looks of parliamentarians as they descended the rest of the steps. "So why are you here?” Quatre asked her. He chose the left, and they began a slow stroll down the pavement. “Aside from my wonderfulness."

She glanced around, but they were only being watched by Quatre’s bodyguard. “Duo's a better friend than... he...” She paused herself. Then amended what she’d planned to say, and finished, “He’s a better friend than anyone could reasonably ask for."

Quatre shot her a sharp glance. "Is this a general statement?"

"I'm afraid not."

He gazed away at the forsythia hedge they walked alongside. "How did you find out?"

"I still have contacts who keep me appraised of a certain kind of event. Lucy Noin called me the night Duo was arrested, and she’s been informing me since then.”

"He was good enough to cover his tracks this long. How did she find out?"

"He damned himself rather a lot in his interview. Noin's a very good detective."

"Damn," he said softly.

"Duo had enough faith to cover for him. Shouldn't we help them both?"

Quatre stopped still and took hold of her elbows, bringing her about to face him. "I think you should be careful before you do anything that can get you into any kind of trouble, Relena."

"Careful is for cowards, darling."

He inhaled audibly. "You have no idea how exciting you make recklessness sound."

"I like being reckless with you." She slipped her hand into his coat pocket. It wasn’t cold, here in the Colonies, though it was winter on Earth. L1 was an endless mild spring, flowers always in bloom, fountains never frozen. "Will you meet with her?” she asked seriously. “She came with me today. Maybe we can figure something out."

"I don't know. I don't know that there ought to be a 'we' here." He wrapped his arm around her, bringing her close to his chest. She rested her chin on his shoulder. “I’ll meet with her, yes. Just not sure you ought to be there as well."

"We're a team, Quatre."

Almost before she said it he caught a quick, hard kiss from her, sealing their pact. She smiled at him.

"Yes we are," he agreed softly. "So when do I get my sidekick cape and tights?"

"Soon, I hope. The mental picture is quite attractive, Mr Winner."

He laughed a little, and loosened his hold on her. The little crinkles around his eyes were deeper for a moment, and Relena thought he looked sad. She rubbed his cheek with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"So am I." He turned his face into her hair. His deep murmur rumbled against her ear. "So let's get this meeting set up."

 

**

 

The best time of day in San Francisco was early morning. Dawn was grey if it was visible at all; the fog obscured the tallest buildings downtown, hid the Golden Gate behind ropes and arches of mist. Everything smelled wet, salty and wet, but the air was crisp and almost raw. And the panhandlers weren’t awake yet, but some of the night dwellers still huddled on corners with cups of coffee, eyes heavy and low while they avoided talking. Everything was narrowed down to ocean and car exhaust and wet cement, a temporary point of peace that would evaporate by mid-day. Looking out over the city, it was like being back in the colonies, standing on the Bernal curve and looking down on the tightly crammed streets, the solar panels on the high-rises and the apartment complexes, white walls and blank windows that just stretched off into the fade. Trowa suspected Wufei might have thought that, too, when he’d been the first to move to the city. He knew Duo had, because Duo had been the first to point out the comforting similarity to him. Trowa had traveled more than enough to know that most of the world was a foreign place, and that he didn’t like it. He liked San Francisco. It had a quality of home.

“I love it here in the morning,” Duo murmured. As he joined Trowa at the window, their shoulders brushed. Duo’s was damp and warm, fresh out of the shower. “Look at those hills,” he added. His chest rose and fell in a deep breath. “I love the curves.”

Trowa smiled, and took the coffee Duo had brought him. “You’ve always been a little non-linear.” All jagged edges looking for a place to catch a moment’s rest.

Duo’s finger smoothed over Trowa’s eyebrow, a gentle little pressure to match the moue of concentration on his face. “You should consider double glazing on the new window,” he said. “Come on. I want to be early.”

 

**

 

 

“Duo! Over here!”

“Killer! The Gundams are traitors and murderers!”

“Duo Maxwell! Mr Maxwell, any comment about your chances with the jury?”

“Mr Addison, are you confident that–“

“I’m confident in my client and I know the jury will find him as innocent as he is,” Addison answered, ignoring the microphone shoved under his nose. “We have no further comments this morning. Please let us through.”

Trowa tightened his hold on Duo’s elbow as they were rocked by the mob of reporters and protestors on the courthouse steps. A cameraman got too close and nearly tripped into them when he was pushed from behind. Someone threw a full cup of liquid, and Trowa caught a splash of it on his shoes while a woman in a suit reeled back, drenched down her shirt. Duo grabbed for his fingers when they were dragged apart, and missed.

Then a wall of uniforms was there. A blank-faced Preventers agent shouldered a path for Trowa and hauled him up along it, climbing the steps rapidly as the crowd stumbled back. They made it to the doors at the top of the steps, and Trowa turned sideways to slip through as his agent about-faced and blocked anyone from following.

Wufei was there already, officiously directing a rather large group of agents via his shoulder comm. He and Trowa exchanged grim looks, and then Wufei turned away to deal with the regular building security. Addison and Kiplis came shooting through the doors a moment later, followed by their own escorts. Trowa turned a full circle, scanning the lobby tensely.

The doors burst open again and two men came tumbling through. Trowa found himself moving before he even registered it was Duo. He slowed when he saw which agent had Duo tucked under his arm. Johnny Cuartero. Wonderful.

“You all right?” he asked Duo.

“We knew it was coming,” Duo said. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. The doors shut and two guards went to make sure they stayed that way, but Duo’s eyes lingered, abstracted. “Johnny thinks we should ask about a back exit,” he added, off by just a beat. “He thinks that circus will still be out there when we’re done today.”

“I spoke with building security this morning,” Johnny offered. His arm had settled over Duo’s shoulders in a companionable sling that wasn’t quite as casual as it looked. “We can bring a car around to the judges’ private lot in back for you this evening.”

That dropped into a small, uncomfortable silence. Duo was already giving him a look– him, not the ex-boyfriend Duo had once called a walking waste of great cock. Trowa returned it, pointedly.

Johnny broke first. He held out his hand, smiling the same boyishly disingenuous smile Trowa had been loathing for three years. "Trowa,” he said. “Nice to see you again."

Under Duo’s glare, Trowa confined himself to social graces. He pressed Johnny’s hand firmly, and didn’t even wipe his palm off after. "Yeah. And thanks, but I've got egress covered."

Johnny switched into Spanish, presumably, Trowa thought, to disinclude him from the conversation. "The whole team from Narc is here," he told Duo. “And the Captain's on his way. We'll be sitting there the whole time."

"You didn't have to do that,” Duo answered. He glanced away to Trowa. “I'm not even sure I want you to. They're gonna say a lot of shit about me in there."

The word he used was _arrocear_. Uninvited. Which, in Trowa’s opinion, described Johnny to a tee. Thank God Duo had got over that stage of his life.

"Nothing we're going to believe,” Johnny protested. “Anyway, we're not going to be spreading it around, you know? We’re your friends. And it’s going to be okay."

Trowa interrupted with a smile, and knocked Johnny’s hand off Duo’s shoulder to replace it with his own. “Semper Fi, huh?” he observed. Johnny’s eyes flickered as he realised he’d been understood, and Trowa added in a mimic of Johnny’s Venezuelan Spanish, “Thanks for letting us know, _compinche_. It'll give Duo a lift in there.”

For a moment Johnny and Duo wore identically cross expressions.

It was Duo who said, "You know what? It's not okay. It's not okay now and it's not going to be okay any time soon. I'd prefer you all not to be there, so just tell them whatever sounds good and go away."

Johnny’s mouth went tense. "We're your friends, your team. It's about us as much as you. That verdict is going to affect everyone."

"Gee,” Trowa said. “So if they lock him up, all the guys are going to take turns in the cell for him?"

"We'd just like everyone to see that you're not guilty."

“I’m not,” Duo said. “Go the fuck home."

Trowa reached across Duo to offer Johnny his hand again. He gripped too hard, and released before Johnny could do anything about it.

"Thanks for coming by,” he said. “But I think Duo needs a little time now. You understand."

The doors blew open again to admit a few harried-looking suits. The noise of the crowd outside hadn’t abated any. Johnny did what he was good at, and left. Duo stuck his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

“I hate when that bastard touches you like he still owns you," Trowa said. Johnny had made it back to his fellow agents, and they were sneaking glances at the two of them.

Without opening his eyes, Duo scrunched his nose up. "What, ‘cause I'm yours now?"

"Because he treated you like shit when he had you." Half the lobby were looking at them. Someone took a picture with their mobile phone, and one of the agents split off to deal with them. "You're not a piece of meat,” he said, “but you're mine if you want to be."

Duo was reluctantly appeased by that. He dropped his hands and put them in his pockets instead. "Gonna write about that in your little book, too?"

"Maybe." Yes. Duo rolled his eyes. "Would it bother you so much if I left the logs out for you to read?"

Duo’s eyes popped open, canny and calculating. "Maybe," he said cautiously. "How do I know you won't keep a dummy book?"

He meant it. He wanted to mean it, anyway. But it was getting to the point with them that hiding things was killing them, so maybe it was time to change. And maybe it was time for Duo to finally have to face the results of all of his demands and expectations getting met. Not all of them were going to feel good all the time. The log... most of the time it would be hard for Duo to see it. Hard for Trowa to keep the thing honestly, knowing Duo was seeing it; but not everything was supposed to be easy.

"Because I'm telling you I won't," he said.

Addison interrupted them gently, waiting for them to notice him before speaking. He touched them both lightly in a gesture meant to comfort. "They’re ready. It's time for us to go in."

Suddenly Trowa wanted to say something more. He wasn’t sure exactly what, and nothing was forthcoming that sounded important enough to mark the occasion, to take away the weight of what was going to happen when they walked into the courtroom. All he came up with was a smile. He made it real, and he made it warm, and even with Addison standing there holding his arm he let down the mental and emotional guards and gave Duo one more minute of real human caring.

He saw it a second before it happened. Whenever Duo said something genuine and naked, the corner of his mouth, the left side, quirked a little, just an uneasy little twitch of almost frown, forced up into a half-smile.

"I love you,” Duo said. “I'm sorry we broke up, because I wish we could have had that year now. So, I love you. And thank you. For everything."

Addison drew Duo away then, and Trowa’s mind told him to follow, but his gut was too busy feeling kicked.

 

**

 

"Miss Noin."

“Please, Quatre, you had your tongue down my throat. I think you can call me Lucy.”

Relena laughed in delight while he flushed. “Quatre!” she teased. “You never told me.”

“Yes, well, that’s a mystery,” Quatre mumbled. Noin– Lucy– winked at him as he bent to kiss her cheek, as chastely as he could manage. He held Relena’s chair as she sat, tucking her skirt beneath her. He took his own seat.

“The menu is rather terrifying,” Lucy offered. “I’ve been staring at the hors d’oeuvres for fifteen minutes. Ceviche or the grilled goats cheese and sunblushed tomatoes?”

Quatre opened the leatherbound tome seated squarely over his service. The words swam without resolving into sense. He fingered the silk fringe, and closed the menu. "I'm afraid I'm not terribly hungry," he fibbed. Relena glanced at him, a sympathetic frown turning her lips down.

"Just as well." Lucy folded her hands, then put them in her lap. "Relena spoke to you?"

"Yes,” he said immediately. “I'd like to know what led you to him."

"He did, actually.” She tucked her short hair behind an ear, not quite meeting his eyes head-on. “My department handled in-house interviews. I spoke to him shortly after Duo's arrest."

“Your department?” he interjected, confused. “I thought you were with the Mobile Suit Corps.”

“Not for the last year.”

“Lucy transferred to Internal Affairs,” Relena explained. “Preventers have grown so much, they wanted a little more supervision.”

“Of their own officers?” Quatre said.

“We weren’t wrong, were we?” Lucy did meet his eyes, then. “When we started the Preventers it was small enough to accept whoever we trusted. Then we accepted people who were trusted by the people we trusted– and you see how it ballooned out of control. By the time we had a process in place, there were thousands of us. Not everyone is equally fit to serve the public.”

He’d been one of the people who had argued for a thorough clearance process, and Lucy knew it. “How long ago did you start looking at this specific case?” he asked instead.

“Years. We noticed a pattern– all the victims were all international criminals, the kind Preventers normally deal with. All of them were being investigated already, but by different departments. It wasn’t until number six that someone thought it might be an insider.” She paused, her fingers tangling in her linen napkin. "Did you ever just get a vibe from someone? Enough of a vibe to do a little investigating, hoping to be proven wrong?"

"How sure are you?"

"Very sure, I'm afraid. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

He reached for his water. The icy trail it made down his chest wasn’t spiritual, but it might as well have been. In for a penny, he thought. He replaced his glass, and wet his lips. "He's not going to jail."

"I figured you'd feel that way."

She wasn’t happy about it, though. "Any punishment he warrants isn't going to come from the same public who wanted us executed as traitors one day and glorified as heroes the next,” he said forcefully. “Any punishment he warrants isn't going to be levied by the people we gave more than just our lives to save. He's earned that, and more."

"I appreciate your sentiment, Quatre. And I expected no less of you. I just... I'm concerned about the number of people who are willing to risk everything for a man who's clearly unbalanced. And unrepentant!"

"We are the only five people in the world who have ever done what we did."

She sat back just slightly, stung. “Of course."

"Quatre didn't mean anything by it, Luce," Relena said gently.

Except that he had, and friendship aside, Quatre didn’t see backing down from it when he knew he was right and Noin felt she had the leverage to question him. He aimed low and he went in fast, and watched her turn pale two words in. He said, "When Zechs Merquise turned to White Fang, you went to the wall to be sure he escaped the consequences. You protected him, and he never spent so much as an hour in a cell or faced a jury of the civilian population who were affected by his seizure of the Libra. So whether you can understand how we feel about each other or not, you will at least admit to the similarities."

"I do. Of course I do. I came to you, didn't I?"

"We will deal with him."

Relena sat strained and perhaps unhappy by his side, but her hand snuck into his under the table. A team, she’d said.

"I'm going to trust you on this, Quatre. And I suppose I'll trust him too.” Noin occupied herself with spreading her napkin over her lap meticulously. “I can talk to Une. I doubt she'll object."

"No, I'm sure she won't." She wouldn’t want the stain on Preventers. Bad enough that an agent had been accused. It would be ten times worse fallout if one were actually guilty. And any protests she had leftover would probably be eased by a hefty donation.

"I want all the evidence in my hands,” he added.

"I've already provided Relena with copies of everything I could gather."

"Not copies. I want all of it. Every record."

"That's not possible."

"Make it possible," he countered.

"What you're asking isn't– " She broke off, and shook her head. "I'll do what I can."

And because he knew her word was as good as having it done, he relaxed deliberately. Noin did, as well, almost unconsciously responding to the easing of silent tension. “Thank you," he said softly.

She managed a small smile. "Of course."

"None of us wanted to be caught up in this. I know what you're risking."

"Do you know what you're risking, Quatre?"

"Exactly what Duo is.” He looked at Relena, already gazing back at him. "We all are. All I can hope is that this doesn't destroy any more friendships."

Relena’s hand squeezed his fingers. “We all believe he's worth the fight, Luce,” she said. “Even you do, or you wouldn't have spoken to me in the first place."

"I'm doing this for Duo," Noin corrected. “Because I won’t sit still while the wrong man goes down, and Duo didn’t leave us many other options.”

In the silence, Quatre looked down. He opened the menu to the wine list. "Why don't we order a red," he murmured.

"That would be lovely," Relena gamely replied.

 

**

 

“They’re going to tell you that there were all these unsolved murders floating about that could only have been committed by a cop,” Addison said. His voice echoed through the high-ceilinged courtroom as he arrived at the jury box. He took a stance between a man and woman in the front row, hands planted on the edge of the box.

“Your job will be to ask them precisely when they came to that conclusion,” he told them. “Because I asked, ladies and gentlemen, and I can tell you the obvious– that they decided it had to be a cop when they had a cop in custody and the idea presented itself. They need a pathology to fit their prime suspect. I guess they didn’t have the time to conduct a real investigation. Maybe they wouldn’t be so under-staffed if they didn’t arrest their own officers for crimes that might not even be related.”

Trowa turned to look when the sound of the door opening dragged his attention away from examining the jury members. It was Heero, trying to slip in unnoticed. Wufei had turned to look, too; he gestured for Heero to join him, but Heero sat on the bench along the back wall instead. Prick, Trowa thought, and promptly forgot about him.

“Oh, they’ll bring you a parade of experts,” Addison said. “They’ll tell you the only common factor linking all six murders is that all the victims were being investigated by various Preventers departments. Because, again, they’ve overlooked the obvious– that all the victims were outlaws deeply involved in the criminal underworld. What do they say about swimming with sharks? That it’s dangerous. Now, when the Prosecution realises you’ve seen through all their more specious arguments, they’ll bring in the personal stuff.”

He angled to gesture at Duo, having left the view clear for all the jury members. “They’ll try to convince you that Agent Duo Maxwell is a rogue, a loose canon, that he’s so wild that he’s just got to be a killer cop. And it will be your job to ignore all their angry rhetoric and keep your eyes on the cold facts. That Agent Duo Maxwell, that young man seated right there, is a dedicated, decorated officer who routinely risks life and limb to eliminate crime. Not by shooting at it or stabbing it or blowing it up– but through investigation, arrest, and lawful trial. So, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to do your job here– give Agent Maxwell the benefit of the system he’s worked so hard to preserve. Find him Not Guilty, and set him free to get back to his job– protecting the rest of us.”

It was a good speech, Trowa decided. The right spin, and the right amount. The jury were gazing over at Duo, sitting straight-backed at his table. He doesn’t look nervous anymore, Trowa thought. He looked self-possessed and almost calm. Trowa wasn’t sure what had brought it on, but it relieved him. Addison seemed to agree. He smiled at Duo and patted his arm as he resumed his seat.

“Mr Addison is right,” said ADA Lebreton. He stood from his table across the aisle, buttoning his jacket. He wasn’t a man very much at ease, and he stayed close to his assistant as if it bolstered his confidence, but the jury were paying attention. “It’s your job to ignore angry rhetoric and keep your eyes on the cold facts,” he continued. “Here’s what they are. There are six people dead that can be linked to one killer. That killer is sitting here in this court room.”

Lebreton pointed rather theatrically at Duo, who didn’t blink. “Duo Maxwell systematically hunted and brutally destroyed these six men. We’ll describe who they were, how they died, and how Maxwell managed to hide it. The Defence will tell you that this is just a ‘theory’ of the crime. Well, they’re being paid to say that. The truth is that we wouldn’t have got to this point if we didn’t know that Maxwell is the killer, if we didn’t believe that we have to stop him now in order to prevent him from killing again.

“Mr Addison asked you to look at Maxwell. Let’s do that.” Lebreton finally ventured away from his table, closer to the Defence. Duo sat at the end of the table nearest him, and the ADA, watching the man’s approach with a growing frown. “Does he look like a serial killer? A Jack the Ripper or Son of Sam?” Lebreton made a vague gesture, either conjuring an image for himself or trying to imitate a slash and hack. Duo leaned back, and looked away.

“A psychotic maniac whose pathology is so radical that we would classify him as insane?” Lebreton turned back to the jury. “He doesn’t. He’s more dangerous. Maxwell doesn’t hear voices telling him who to kill. He takes advantage of the public trust that made him a Preventer to locate and murder criminals. Some of you might think– good on him. He gets the guys who might otherwise never come to justice. Am I personally sorry that any of these dead men have been removed from the face of the earth before they could do any more damage? Not even a little. But nothing in our laws gives Duo Maxwell the right to act as judge and jury and executioner. That’s too much power for one man, even one who thinks he’s doing the rest of us a favour. You’re a real jury. Show Duo Maxwell that the system does work. Find him guilty and send him to jail for the rest of his life.”

That, Trowa thought grimly, was an unfortunately cogent argument. Addison leaned over Duo and whispered something. Duo nodded, put his elbows on the table and leaned over it with his head low. Trowa pressed his palms flat together to stop himself rubbing his fingers.

“Opening statements are complete?” Padilla questioned. “The Prosecution has the option of proceeding first. Mr Lebreton, you may call your first witness.”


	10. Ten

“I don't think there's enough information to point to a single person,” Heero said.

Lebreton nodded. "So this was a conspiracy?"

Heero glanced at Duo– again. Trowa could have strangled the man and considered it his good deed for the year. “We can't eliminate that possibility," Heero said mechanically.

Lebreton could have been a first-year law student and still seized on that one. "But you don’t really think that it is, Agent Yuy? You can’t really imagine that possibility fitting any of the facts, can you?”

“We don’t have a lot of facts.”

It was five in the afternoon, and they’d already been through ballistics on all six murder scenes. Two of the jurors looked like they were seriously missing their afternoon naps, and even Padilla was glancing at her watch frequently. Trowa was trying not to think about how sore his ass was from sitting on a wooden pew all day; he thought Duo might be daydreaming. He wasn’t watching Heero’s testimony, anyway. Maybe he was wishing he hadn’t screwed the guy right before he went on record.

“Well, let’s count them,” Lebreton said. “We’ve got this one. About six months ago, Preventers administration alerted all its departments that a series of killings had been linked to a single killer, yes?”

“Yes,” Heero said.

“Did you reply then that you thought it was a conspiracy? That there were several killers?”

“I didn’t think anything.”

Do you ever? Trowa thought, cynical in his own head. Heero’s naivete hadn’t been charming in a long time. He sat there in all his blank-faced non-responsive– it was a kind of arrogance, Trowa thought, it was a kind of I’m better than this, and Heero was. They all were. And he didn’t think Heero knew he was doing it, but for God’s sake.

“Here’s another fact,” Lebreton continued. “You’ve got an impressive arrest record, I see. Your superiors call you an excellent detective.”

“I suppose.”

“Not just a detective. Let’s admit the obvious– you’re a former Gundam Pilot, yes?”

Addison stood. “Objection, your Honour.”

“Overruled,” Padilla said.

“Internationally famous, or infamous,” Lebreton added. “You have extraordinary physical ability, a heightened sense of morality, of personal responsibility, according to all the evidence. You’re a hero. Your word is gold.”

Heero’s face was grave and closed. “Is this a question?”

“You’ve known Duo Maxwell for years, yes? More than a decade?”

“He’s an incredible person,” Heero said. His eyes went shuttered, and he cast a glance away. “All the things you just said about me, they’re true about him.”

“Then give us some context for this fact. You and Agent Chang encountered Mr Maxwell at the scene of the murders of Craig Becker and Rene Vasquez. It took you less than ten minutes to arrest him, and three hours to turn him over for arraignment. Why? Is it because you know that Duo Maxwell often poses as a drug runner, a gang member, as part of his job? As an undercover agent, doesn’t he lie? Misrepresent himself? Routinely break the laws he’s sworn to uphold in order to catch other criminals?"

“Objection,” Addison said, rising to his feet.

Lebreton held up a hand. “Goes to state of mind, your Honour.” He waited for a nod, and got it. “Agent Yuy, faced with a number of possibilities, as you say, why did so quickly assume that Duo Maxwell, and only Duo Maxwell, was guilty of multiple murders?”

"The situation was damning,” Heero said. “When I saw him there, I felt betrayed. Shocked. By the time the dust had settled, it was too late to put the bullet back in the gun. I didn't do my job that night. I'll be making up for it for a long time."

Heero’s expressionless honesty raised a few eyebrows in the jury. Lebreton hesitated. Trowa was ready to write that one off as a win for the Defence, until Lebreton came back with, “Making it up to him? To yourself? By doing anything it takes to make things right with your friend?”

If only more people had been willing to, Trowa thought sourly.

 

**

 

“What’s this called again?”

“Salmon casserole.”

“And it’s made with street tar?”

Trowa threw a spoonful of rice at Duo, kicking his legs against the cupboards where he sat on the countertop. “I can cook, twerp. You’ll eat it and like it.” Duo picked grains off his shirt and ate them, and Trowa laughed. Then the doorbell rang.

"You call Quat over?"

"No, but that doesn't mean anything.” Trowa set his spoon on the stovetop and wiped his hands. “Let me get it." Duo didn’t seem to think twice of it, and Trowa was glad. Quatre was on L1 for the final Senatorial session before the break. There was no way he would be able to get away for an unanticipated dinner with friends, even if he took the risk of visiting a friend whose murder trial had just started. Which left Wufei or Heero, neither of whom Trowa particularly wanted to welcome; or it left a reporter who had dug up Trowa’s address.

Or worse, as it turned out.

“I’m here for Duo Maxwell,” said the man standing on Trowa’s front stoop.

Trowa had a .25 in his hand and aimed before the second word. “Hands in the air now, or I shoot and ask questions later.”

“Peace-time mission, man. I’m just here to talk.”

“You’re Abelino Roque,” Trowa said. Right-hand soldier to Alberto Cicatriz, which meant– “Which means you’re Almighty Latin King Nation, which means you saw Duo on TV and you know he’s really an agent with the Preventers.”

“Yeah,” Roque agreed. Laconically he opened his jacket, hands out to his side, letting Trowa count the guns and knives strapped underneath. “And you’re gonna let me in, because this has nothin’ to do with you.”

Trowa raked the street outside for– an army of angry gang bangers signaling The End, maybe. The lane was quiet and undisturbed. Across the road, he saw Mary Wilkinson park her car and head inside without so much as glancing around toward him. And with Roque standing there silently laughing at him, Trowa had to wonder at his own frame of reference, these days, that it even occurred to him to find it funny, too.

“What; no pizza?” he said, and didn’t lower his gun.

Maybe he was just tired enough to be a little punchy.

“I got a bag of tamales in the car if you’re desperate,” Roque said.

Trowa looked at it automatically. A non-descript Sedan, mid-size, black, entirely unremarkable. Mary Wilkinson sure wouldn’t remember it being there, if police ever came by to investigate the bodies of two mysteriously murdered men in 12B.

He holstered his weapon, and Roque stepped past him inside.

Duo was standing tensely in front of the drawers. He must have heard. The air of nervous energy he wore intensified a few notches when he recognised Trowa’s companion. "Someone to see you," Trowa said grimly.

Roque put his hands in his pockets and smiled a subdued little smile. "Hey, cabron,” he said. “Long time."

Duo jerked his chin. "Ese vato. Que pasa?"

Roque glanced at Trowa, and answered in his accented English. "Got a minute?"

"Yeah." Duo gestured to the table, and Roque sat first. Duo eased into his chair like he might want to run if the moment came. He wasn’t giving any signs to Trowa, not so much as a glance. Trowa took that for deliberate, and moved into the space Duo had vacated. It had a good angle on the front door and the kitchen window.

"Is this a ‘sit down, have a beer’ situation, Roque?" he asked.

Roque shrugged. "I have things to say. That's all."

Trowa didn’t know what particularly that meant, but it didn’t seem to lead to immediate violence. He took two beers out of the fridge and set them on the table between the two men. Neither looked at him as he went back for a third, and opened it for himself.

"I don't want to make you drink with me if you need to do something about me," Duo said.

"If I needed to do something about you we wouldn't be sitting talking at your table.” Roque twisted off the cap inside his elbow, and sipped the beer. “So chill out, flaco."

Duo chewed his lower lip, then nodded. "I heard you got out of cold storage a few months back. You been well?"

"Mi vida loca, yeah? You know. The usual. You've looked better."

Duo laughed at that, a harsh sudden sound. He inclined his bottle, and drank.

"So 'Berto and I were talking. About your future."

Duo nodded again, his shoulders tight. "Yeah."

"You think you're going to beat this thing?

"I don't know. The lawyers don't talk about what happens if I don't, so maybe that's a good sign."

"You need anything? ‘Coz we've got people."

"No,” Duo declined shortly, and sincerely. “But thank you."

"Figured you'd say that. Still,” Roque said. “'Berto wanted me to ask."

"I appreciate it. You didn't come here just to make that offer."

"No. But you probably know why I came." Now it was Roque who looked uncomfortable, his angular face going into a frown as he examined the label on his bottle. "'Berto wants you to know, no-one's looking at you for these killings. It don't make sense. You've been one of us, and, yeah, you'd know better places to hit if you wanted to do damage."

"The kind of damage I want to do, I don't do with a gun," Duo said bluntly. "I’ve been in the game. I know what's right by you, and what's not."

"But you ain't one of us no more." Roque held Duo’s eyes, and Trowa itched for his gun again, but didn’t want to make a move that might start something. The other two sat so still. "Never again,” Roque added. “You got me?"

Duo lowered his head. "Yes. I hear you."

"You don't have to look like that, okay? It makes me feel like shit."

"You shouldn't. I'm the one who– You went to jail because of me. I took your hospitality, your friendship. I was lying while I did it."

"Everybody lies, man. You know that."

"I believed in the reasons for doing it," Duo said.

Trowa had known Duo for all of five minutes before he’d figured out that Duo never did anything unless he could justify it with his moral code. And apparently Roque had had plenty of experience with Duo, too, because all he did was smile. "Ever consider a life of crime, cabron?"

Duo broke a little grin for that. He didn’t shake his head, but Roque didn’t press it.

"So what's the deal with the watchdog?" He pointed his beer at Trowa, who frowned back.

"He's a friend,” Duo said. He glanced at Trowa. “He's the suspicious kind."

"He came up on our radar before."

"I never could convince him to stay at home and do the cooking."

"'Berto's protections don't extend to him. Okay? We don't want to see him no more."

Duo’s face went smooth and unreadable with one blink. He nodded.

Roque stood. "I been here long enough. Keep care of yourself, amigo."

"You, too. I mean- I mean, honestly, Roque."

"I know, Duo." Roque turned his back on them. "Whatever you're cooking smells like shit, man. Throw it away." Neither of them moved to show him out, but they heard the front door as it opened, and then closed, a moment later. The condo fell silent.

Trowa remembered to breathe, and downed half his beer along with a deep breath. "Going to tell me what that was about?" he demanded.

Duo rubbed his hands together, and finished his drink. "Shut up and finish cooking. I'm starving."

He let it go, only to avoid an argument. It had been clear enough, anyway. "It does not smell like shit," he said, and opened the pot. A cloud of steam and a distinct scent of burning rice was his answer.

"No, it smells like canned salmon."

He stirred vigorously and decided it was as done as it was going to get. He dropped a tea towel on the table and set the pan on top of it, then got bowls and spoons. He caught Duo staring toward the door. On mute, he filled a bowl for Duo, and set it in front of him.

"You heard him,” Duo said abruptly. “You don't go near them again."

"Why would I?" He hadn’t done it for larks. Duo had gone undercover for the Preventers a total of eight times, since Trowa had started watching him. Maybe it was a measure of how good Duo was that he’d managed to make friends doing it, friends enough to protect his life when a murder trial blew his face all over the news where anyone could put two and two together. Friends enough to let a few murders be bygones, on the off chance that Duo was smart enough not to pick off a few criminals for kicks, whatever he did for his day job.

He knew Duo had fired shots for the gang. He knew Duo had sold drugs, robbed people, beaten them, all for believing in the reasons for doing it. And gone back to Preventers Plaza with lists of names, with photographs, with forensic evidence of all of it. Put people like Roque in jail for it, actually. Trowa had watched a lot of it from the sidelines. It was the honesty. It got to people. Duo smiled, and you knew it was real. People like Une sent him off with a fake name and told him to ‘get close’, with some idea that Duo came from L2, that he knew more about gangs than some silver spoon detective fresh from the Academy because he’d lived it, and they gave him a pass on any crimes he had to commit while he worked his way up the ranks to right-hand soldiers like Roque and the dons like Alberto, who liked him enough to let him walk away when they found out he was lying to them. That was what Duo did that made him good. And for a weird moment, Trowa felt something like a flush of pride.

"I don't know why you would do before,” Duo said. “But just tell me you understand."

"I heard you, okay?” Trowa sat in the chair Roque had used. “Eat your dinner. You're starved."

Duo dug a spoonful from his bowl, and paused to pick something off his tongue before swallowing. Trowa let out a genuine laugh of delight. “Oh, knock it off.”

"I don't know if that's a fingernail or if I chipped my tooth on it."

"Ass. It's good."

"Yeah, it's good."

"You still mad?"

"I, uh..." He stirred slowly through his plate. "No,” he said. “I'm not still mad."

"Okay. Good." Trowa sectioned his bowl into fourths, and ate from the right corner first. “I admit that I might have let it get a little... dry.”

Duo scratched his hair. Then he exhaled, and reached into his waistband. He laid a gun, and then one of the sharp cooking knives from the drawer, on the table next to his place mat.

"You thought he wanted something different than he did?" Trowa asked softly.

"They wouldn't have sent Roque for that. He’s not an enforcer. On the other hand, it was always possible I'd personally pissed him off, I guess."

"They know where you live."

"Yeah."

Trowa went back to the counter for the beer he’d forgotten, and got another bottle each for them. He stood behind Duo’s chair, and rubbed his neck firmly. "Should you be letting Yuy know about this?” he murmured.

Duo’s muscles were so tense they resisted Trowa’s fingers. "What's the point?" he retorted.

Trowa shrugged, and settled for just pressing lightly with his thumbs at the base of Duo’s skull beneath the braid. "Whatever you think is best."

They never did eat the casserole. Trowa bent to kiss the back of Duo’s neck. Duo turned in the chair to look at him, and Trowa knelt between his knees. Duo came when he pulled, and Trowa rolled him under the table. He made a joke about Duo scrubbing down the tiles just in time, and Duo didn’t laugh, but it helped.

 

**

 

“Defence calls Trowa Barton, your Honour,” Addison said. He glanced back, and Trowa stood from his seat in the galley. The clerk met him at the bar with a clipboard and a pen.

“Do you swear to speak truthfully, and to maintain the integrity of that oath until absolved by this court?”

“I swear,” Trowa said. He signed the form the clerk held out, and climbed into the witness stand. He pulled the microphone a few inches closer, and settled back against the hard wooden rungs of the chair. It rocked just slightly off-balance.

He’d testified before in other courts, maybe a dozen times by now, working for the Preventers. The first time it had even meant something to him, that oath he’d just sworn, the solemn duty of being a cog in the great system of justice. He’d lost a lot of trust in the mechanisms since then, though. All he really hoped for this time was to tell the right truths– and the right lies, if that was needed.

Duo wore a moody look today. He had his thumbnail between his teeth, hiding half his face. Trowa avoided looking at him too long.

It wasn’t Addison who stood. It was Kiplis. She was all high heels and aggressive suit, her ginger hair pulled back severely from her forehead. She crossed her arms, standing there behind her table, and pursed her lips.

"How long have you known Duo?" she asked.

"Since we were teenagers."

"And how long have you been stalking him?"

It wasn’t the line of questions they’d prepared. Trowa sat a little straighter.

"Pretty much the last three years," he admitted slowly.

She walked a little closer to him, her shoes clicking on the hardwood floors. She held up his log, the original black oilcloth. "You kept pretty detailed journals about him,” she said. “What he was doing every day, what you thought he was thinking. Are you obsessed with Duo?"

She reminded him Une. He felt an almost relaxed recognition when he saw it. "You could say that."

She opened to a page marked with a green slip, and reached over the bar to pass it to him. "I want you to read the highlighted part."

Trowa cleared his throat. He recognised the passage. He had perfect recall of everything he’d ever written down. "He had dinner with JC tonight,” he read into the microphone. “Stupid. No one needs to get laid that bad." It had been three months after they’d broken up, himself and Duo. Right back to the first person who evidenced a little interest. Duo wasn’t too good at keeping away from what was bad for him.

"That refers to Duo's ex-boyfriend, doesn't it?"

She went trampling all over their agreement to keep mum about Duo’s sexuality without the slightest hint that it bothered her. He saw why they’d picked her for this. There were no motherly smiles, today.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Have you slept with Duo yourself?"

“Are you asking me if we've had sex?"

“I’ll remind you of the oath you just swore to tell us the truth.”

Duo was lobster red right to his hairline, slumped low in his seat. “Yeah,” Trowa said. “We have.”

"About how mortified does he look right now?" Kiplis turned to look at Duo. Heads followed from the jury box. “I'd say that's about an eight out of ten, wouldn't you?"

You'd be feeling like you just got your balls kicked in, too, if someone just outed you to your partners as the raging dyke you look like, Trowa thought viciously.

"It's pretty bad,” Trowa said flatly.

"Because you know that Duo wasn't out at work, was he? He wasn't out to anyone but a few close friends, right?"

"No. He wasn't."

"Which sort of means Duo's been living a lie for– well, since you were teenagers, yes?"

He’d thought he knew where she was going with it. He hoped he was right. First blood in a dirty war was always an advantage. Of course Lebreton was going to attack Duo’s– their sex life. Spectacle and secrets made for good drama. Kiplis could steal a lot of thunder playing this right.

He licked his teeth, and shrugged. "I wouldn’t call it a lie,” he said. “He's a private guy."

"And you're all about respecting his privacy, aren't you?" She took the log back and rifled the pages. "You've recorded practically everything Duo's done for three years. If we knew what your codes are, I bet we could find the names of every gay club he went to at night, every bar he snuck off to, even what websites he looked at."

"If you knew my codes you'd have a very detailed log of all of his activities."

"Did you follow Duo on his undercover jobs?"

"Sometimes."

"You went everywhere he went. You saw everything he saw. You know every tiny detail about this man sitting right there, yes?"

"Yes." He didn’t flinch from her gaze.

"So you'd be the very first to know if Duo snuck off somewhere to kill criminals, wouldn't you?"

This was a dangerous game. And he wasn’t entirely sure it was a win that was coming. "I'd know, yes."

She re-presented him with his log. "So show me where in your journal you recorded him doing that."

“I can't. He didn't do any of the killings he's accused of."

"Are you absolutely sure?” she pressed. “Can you say unequivocally that you would know if Duo was living with another dark secret?"

"Absolutely sure,” Trowa retorted. “He can't hide anything from me."

"Are you sure?” She tossed the book to the table in front of Duo and faced him again. “Because if Duo knew you were following him, he might have waited until you were out of town..."

"He didn't know."

"No? Because the Prosecution would have us believe that Duo's pretty smart. Pretty devious. And if you and he were sleeping together sometimes, maybe he just figured you all out."

"I had him snowed. He trusted me."

Kiplis raised her eyebrows. "He doesn't anymore?"

"No.” Duo glanced up at him over his hand, and Trowa looked away fast. “I really blew it with him, doing this."

"One last question. What is it about Duo that interests you so much?"

Trowa drew a deep breath. "He's the most genuine human being I've ever known."

"Thank you," Kiplis said. She returned to her seat, a little smirk of satisfaction on her face.

Lebreton didn’t look that happy. Padilla gestured for him to take the lead, but he didn’t respond right away. He and his assistant conferenced quickly in short whispers. Trowa performed a slump of his own. Two of the jury members were making notes, and a black woman in the back row that he’d pegged as a sure guilty verdict was giving him a thoughtful examination.

“Any time, Mr Lebreton,” Padilla prodded.

Lebreton rose slowly, fumbling with the top button of his jacket. Lamely, he asked, "You've got some pretty strong feelings for Duo, yes?"

"We grew up together," Trowa said.

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"I care about him. Yeah."

Lebreton warmed to his questions. He wandered out from behind his table toward Trowa. "Most stalkers have fantasies about the people they stalk,” he said. “They imagine they're in a relationship. But you really were in a relationship with Mr Maxwell, right? For two years, according to your journal."

"We were."

"And you've been here every day since the trial started, sitting right behind him."

"Yeah."

Lebreton pounced. "So explain to me how we're supposed to expect that you'd sit on that witness stand and say anything bad about the man you've dedicated considerable time and energy to having in every possible way. Explain to me how we're supposed to believe that you aren't lying for him, to cover up the crimes you know he's committed."

His gut-level reaction was to end it. Every time he looked at Duo, Duo was more tense, more uncomfortable. I’m a cop, he could say, I’m a cop, and it would all blow up. There’d be a mistrial, that was a sure thing, an instant mistrial because no-one wanted it to come out who he was. But then they’d just have to start over, all over again in a few months, and Duo wouldn’t survive that. Or maybe there’d never be another trial. The DA’s office had barely made it on this one. Except Trowa would be in jail by then, because Une would drop him under the wheels so fast he wouldn’t even see the truck that hit him.

“Mr Barton?”

"Lying to protect a murderer wouldn't be an act of love,” Trowa said. “Not in Duo's eyes. Not in mine."

Duo looked up. He looked troubled.

"Love is a mature and compassionate emotion," Lebreton countered. "It requires self-sacrifice and an absence of ego. I don't see a lot of that in you. What I see is a smug young man who will do anything to get what he wants, and what he wants is a man about to go to jail for murder. No further questions."

 

**

 

Wufei avoided the eyes of an old man washing in the sink as he crossed the bathroom to the stalls. The door was full-length, the cubicle large enough to stand comfortably, and he locked it behind himself as the other man noisily blew his nose, then exited.

The sound of the toilet flush covered the entrance of two more men, but he heard their voices. “What do you want?” one said shortly.

"Talk,” the other returned. The tones were confrontational, and Wufei hesitated with his hand on the lock. He didn’t particularly want to walk out on an argument, and that left him effectively stuck in the cubicle. “I miss you,” the second man added. “I guess... maybe I shouldn't have left you alone. You might not be in this mess."

Oh, no. He recognised those voices. Duo and Johnny Cuartero from Narcotics. He’d seen Johnny in the audience several times. And now he was trapped listening to an argument that was bound to be personal, and quite possibly bitter.

The pause that followed Johnny’s statement seemed unnaturally long. Then Duo laughed. “That's the stupidest thing you've ever said to me, and I thought I'd have trouble topping your break-up speech."

Good for Duo. Johnny was beyond arrogant if he thought his 'protection' could have stopped Duo making the decision he made. But then, Johnny had always assigned himself more importance and relevance than he’d actually had in Duo's life and actions. Wufei began to carefully draw back the latch, concentrating on keeping it silent.

"Look, I’m just worried about you."

"Well, that's awfully kind of you,” Duo snapped. “Given the month of dead silence that preceded it. We're not a couple, in case you forgot. You don't have to care about me anymore. Trust me, I don't lose a lot of sleep over your problems."

They’d reached the bitterness. Wufei hesitated, caught over the immorality of watching as well as listening to the fight taking place by the sinks. He cracked the door just enough to get a glimpse of Duo slouch-backed and glowering into the mirrors.

Johnny’s voice was hurt. "You don't have to be mean, Duo."

"What do you want me to say? That I'm fine, that everything is going to have a happy ending? I don't know that, and you're not the first person I'm concerned with telling even if I did know."

Johnny moved into Wufei’s line of sight. He turned Duo to face him. "I want you to say that you didn't do it," he said soberly.

Wufei nearly burst out into the open for that. He’d never particularly liked Johnny, but he’d never thought the man was capable of such a low blow.

Duo looked shocked. In a soft, incredulous voice, he said, "You really have to ask me that?"

"It looks really bad."

"I can't believe you. I can't believe you can look me in the eye and tell me you think I'm capable of doing this."

"You're a violent man and you've got a temper, Duo."

"How did you ever respect me enough to fuck me, Johnny?" Duo shoved, and Johnny stumbled a step away. "You know, I could get it when you said you couldn’t deal with what I did during the war. But this is– Fuck you. You talk about it with the guys? Tell them you always suspected I was capable of this?”

“Oh, your Gundam buddies have done you so much better? They’re testifying against you!” Johnny turned to follow Duo’s progress through the bathroom. “I didn't mean to hurt you."

“You know? I don't think I believe that." Duo faced Wufei’s stall. Their eyes connected, and Wufei flinched.

"Get the hell out,” Duo said. The moment passed, and he turned back to Johnny. “And for the record, you didn't leave me alone. You just left me free."

It hung there, not quite finished. Johnny rubbed his mouth. "Look,” he said, apologetic now.

Wufei left his stall before Johnny could add anything else. The agent jumped at his sudden appearance. Wufei levelled a long look at the man.

“Look,” Johnny repeated a moment later. "I've gotta go. Just– call me. Okay?"

The door swung shut on Johnny’s retreat. Duo slammed his hand down on the sink with a resounding thwack.

Wufei flushed in fresh embarrassment. He slowed his last steps up to the sink. Duo was leaning over the countertop, his head down. Wufei turned on a faucet and washed his hands.

"Eavesdropping is a nasty habit," Duo said.

“I was minding my own business when the two of you came in."

"Then congratulations on the longest piss in the universe."

"I'm sorry."

Duo rubbed his fingers through his hair. His eyes closed tightly.

Wufei stared at him in the mirror, rubbing wet hands together. Duo had such disastrous taste in men. Until Johnny, and then Trowa, the best that could be said about Duo’s boyfriends was that none of them lasted longer than a few days. The best that could be said about Johnny was that he was well-groomed. And at the worst, he had never understood Duo, never respected Duo, and he’d left when things turned bad.

"His lack of faith in you is shameful," he said.

Duo grabbed him by the lapel and slammed his forearm into Wufei’s throat. His back hit the wall and Duo pressed him back against it, threatening his air supply. It was an illegal chokehold, but an effective one. Wufei responded in automatic self-defence, his foot hooking around Duo’s ankle and his hands ready to strike the other man off-balance. He stopped himself before throwing Duo off.

“Go ahead and say it," he whispered.

Duo’s face twisted in a snarl. "You don't get to talk about lack of faith, you motherfucking bastard."

"I know. I know," he coughed. He tried to ease the pressure of Duo’s arm off his airway without drawing attention to the action. "I'm still your friend.” Duo pressed harder in response. Black spots swam out of the corners of Wufei’s eyes, and his head felt tight and compressed. With an effort, he dropped his hands to his side, surrendering himself to the possibility of real violence.

"I wouldn't blame you,” he said, “but if you do this here, it will only convince them you're guilty."

The appeal to self-preservation seemed to penetrate. Duo’s jaw moved as the jab of his elbow in Wufei’s carotid slowly lessened.

“I’ve been here every day, too,” Wufei said. “I’m watching you in there. You’ve been immobilised by all of this. You’re flagging. You’re giving up. If I can see it, so can the jury. You’re stronger than this. You need to remember that, and start fighting again.”

"Screw off," Duo answered finally. He shoved Wufei hard into the wall, and let go.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

Duo threw a fist into the paper towel dispenser. "Stop saying you're sorry!" he shouted. "Stop fucking saying it or I swear to God I'll turn you inside out."

The door surprised them both. Duo’s voice died out immediately, and Wufei bit back the protest he’d been on the verge of voicing. It was Trowa.

His first worry was that they’d been heard down the hall. He truly couldn’t blame Duo for finally cracking, and in a way it relieved him to see Duo release some of his frustration. But it was Duo all over to choose the courthouse men’s room to do it.

Trowa let the door close, and wrapped an arm about Duo’s waist. "Addison was looking for you,” he murmured. “Something about going over a few questions."

Duo cast Wufei a look still edged with that desperate fury. But he swallowed it down, and nodded once. He left without saying anything else.

Trowa stayed, though. He took a stance against the wall, watching Wufei straighten his jacket and retie his hair. "Sucks to be you," he said.

Wufei met Trowa's eyes in the mirror as he turned on the faucet a second time. The water was only lukewarm, the soap especially astringent. "He's not out of line, but he is out of control,” he answered. “Can you help him with that?"

Trowa’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Yeah,” he said. “I can. I've been doing it since you and your partner decided to trash him." He knocked the lever back to off, and the water stopped flowing. Wufei shook drops from his hands. Quietly, Trowa asked, "What in hell happened to you, Chang?"

He reached past Trowa for the paper towels, carefully taking only one to dry his hands. As he leant back, their eyes slid over each other, and caught.

"I got lost," he said.

Trowa’s mouth was a thin hard line.

"Expose me,” Wufei said. “I want you to. If you don't, I'll do it myself."

Trowa moved finally. He slipped his hands into his pockets, and rested his shoulders back on the wall. “It's a little late for that, Wufei."

Wufei closed his eyes in defeat. "It was never meant to go this far. I’ll...” He binned the damp towel. “I’ll take care of it."

This time Trowa grabbed him, not by the lapels, but just under the knot of his tie. "You'll do nothing,” he hissed harshly. “Do you understand? It's over. Everything you've done. Everything you haven't done but still burn to. Just keep your fucking mouth shut and let someone with his head on straight handle this." He let go violently, rocking Wufei with the force of it. "Don't come back in the courtroom until you've got yourself under control. It’s time to man up, Wufei."


	11. Eleven

“Next witness, Mr Lebreton?” Padilla said.

Lebreton stood, buttoning his jacket. “The People call Duo Maxwell, your Honour.”

From the angle Trowa sat at, he could see Duo’s right hand in his lap. He was dragging his thumbnail back and forth across his index finger. The way he’d been chewing them lately, his nails had to be ragged. But it was the only tell that Duo was nervous as he stood. He was short next to Lebreton, crossing paths with him as he walked around his table to the witness stand, somber in his black suit and tie, remarkably un-Duo-like. He mumbled through the swearing in at low volume with the clerk, and climbed the stand, and sat.

Lebreton nodded in greeting as if they hadn’t been occupying the same room for the past two weeks. “Are you comfortable, Mr Maxwell?” he asked. “Would you like a glass of water?”

“No,” Duo said. “Thank you.”

“We’ll start with an easy question,” Lebreton said. “Where did you grow up?”

Addison shot to his feet, making everyone start. “Objection, your Honour, outside the scope.”

Lebreton faced Padilla. “I know the boundaries, your Honour. This is well within the scope of these proceedings.”

“You can continue,” she decided. “Be careful what you ask.”

“Please answer the question, Mr Maxwell. Where did you grow up?”

Duo’s eyes flickered from his lawyers back to Lebreton. “L2.”

“What was it like there?”

“Objection,” Addison interrupted again. “Relevance.”

“If Counsel will let me get on with it, I can demonstrate relevance,” Lebreton retorted. Padilla only waved a hand, and Addison subsided, his expression tense.

Duo took his cue from the judge. “It wasn’t great. I don’t know.”

“Some of our jury members might not know much about the Colonies. It’s hard for us to imagine what they were like before the War.” His tone was pleasantly patient. “I’m hoping you can describe it.”

“Like what?”

“Where did you live?” He paused, then elaborated before Duo could answer. “A house, an apartment?”

“No,” Duo said sullenly. “I didn’t have a home.”

“You were indigent.”

Duo hadn’t wanted to prepare for Lebreton’s questions. Anticipation won’t change my answers, he’d said, and just refused to think about it. Trowa thought he was being a moron, and he’d said so, but Duo’s wasn’t the kind of mind that needed to keep a story straight. Except he didn’t have anything straight in his head anymore, and having your guard up wasn’t the same thing as being ready for the hurt.

“I lived on the street, yeah. Sometimes in the superstructure,” Duo said. “You could stay there for a few days before the cold got too bad.”

“Why on the street? You were an orphan?”

“I guess. I didn’t have any papers and I never knew my parents.”

“No family at all? Who raised you?”

“There’s a lot of gangs in the Colonies. We looked after each other.”

“Gangs made up of orphans, yes? The side-effect of decades of civil conflict. We’ve all read stories about the child gangs. Some serious criminal activity. Drugs, arms, even prostitution.”

Duo’s expression was hard. He looked at Addison again, but there was no help coming from there. “The plague killed off a lot of them,” he said finally. “The ones who were left didn’t have a lot of choice. No-one was handing out food and shelter on L2. They sent the police to wipe us out, and when the police weren’t enough, they sent the Feds.”

Lebreton drifted toward the jury box, and leant against the railing. “What do you mean, ‘wipe you out’? Were you ever afraid for your life?”

“I knew of soldiers who kept a count of how many they killed. No-one ever put any of them on trial.”

“Tell us about the Maxwell Church orphanage.”

Fuck, Trowa thought. Duo went still as stone up on the stand. There weren’t all that many who put it together, Duo and the Church, and the ones who did know knew damn well better than to bring it up.

“You were rounded up under Mayor Scott Schulyer’s ‘Clean the Streets’ Act of 188, yes? And placed in a state-sponsored orphanage. Where you just happened to be the sole survivor of one of the worst cases of violence against Colonials in our history, yes? The Maxwell Church Massacre.” He crossed his arms over his chest, gazing at Duo. “How many people were living in the church at the time of that tragedy?”

“Fifty-four,” Duo said, almost inaudibly. “Father Maxwell, two nuns and four initiates, and– us.”

“All of them killed when Alliance military fired artillery on the Church. Except for you. You lived.”

Duo’s lips were parted like he was having trouble breathing. He kept looking at Addison for rescue. Trowa felt pain in his palms and realised he was clenching his fists.

“You even took on the name Maxwell, as a tribute to what you’d been through, I imagine.” Lebreton came back to the stand. “Would it be accurate to say you’ve got a lot of anger about the life you led on L2?”

“I don’t think I’d describe it like that.”

“How would you describe it then?”

“I would say that I– I don’t live there anymore, and I don’t live like that now.”

“Have you ever been professionally treated for Post Traumatic Stress?”

Trowa silently imagined Lebreton’s head imploding.

Duo’s expression was impossible to read. “Yes.”

“Multiple times, am I correct?” He didn’t wait for Duo’s confirmation. “What about anger management? Yes? Two different seminars.”

“One of those was mandated by the Department. Everyone in my squad had to go.”

“Four agents in Preventers Homicide filed complaints against you. They said you were biased against the agents born on Earth, especially ones who had transferred to Preventers from the Alliance military or OZ.”

“They filed that complaint after they were fired for not doing their jobs. I’m biased against incompetence, is what I’m biased against.”

“It sounds like you have an excuse for just about everything, Mr Maxwell.”

“Objection,” Addison said.

“Withdrawn.” Lebreton crossed his arms. “Have you ever killed anyone? Aside from the men you’re on trial for murdering.”

“Objection!” Addison was on his feet, and so were the rest of the team. “Your Honour, the ADA is violating the pre-trial motions!”

Padilla was frowning. She depressed the noise button on her microphone and motioned the lawyers forward. Trowa strained to listen, but couldn’t hear anything. Addison was furious, his hands waving as he spoke, but Lebreton had scored a point with just the suggestion. Trowa looked at Duo. Duo was already looking at him.

At last the conference broke apart. Addison did not look relieved as he returned to his seat. Trowa sat up, but Addison only shook his head, and faced resolutely frontward.

“Let me rephrase my question,” Lebreton said. “Have you ever been forced to kill a perpetrator while on duty with the Preventers?”

“Yes.” Silently Trowa offered whatever encouragement he could. Duo broke their stare, and turned his eyes to the ADA. “It’s an unfortunate part of my job.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not asking the precise amount in your checking account, Mr Maxwell, I’m asking how many men you’ve personally killed. Can you at least estimate? One? Five? A dozen?”

“Ten,” Duo said.

Lebreton returned to his table to grab the file of photographs he’d used earlier. “You don’t have alibis for 13 December 204, 5 March 205, 24 August 206, or 17 October 207, do you? And on the night of 28 January of this year?” He didn’t wait more than a second for Duo’s answer. “On the 28th, you say you got a call from a confidential informant who directed you to the apartment of Rene Vasquez. But that’s not true, is it? Any more than that you were home alone on the other nights in question, when you in fact strangled one man, hung another, forced a third to slit his own veins, and burned a fourth alive in an abandoned car.”

“No,” Duo said forcefully.

“Except that you got caught on the 28th. Two of your own colleagues responded to a call and found you standing over the body of Rene Vasquez. You had forced him to kneel against the wall, and you shot him in the face. But that’s not all. There was another man there that night. Craig Becker was there, too. You bashed in his skull and you shot him four times in the chest, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And once you had killed them, you started to get rid of the bodies. That’s your MO, isn’t it? You kill them and you move the bodies somewhere where they won’t be found for a few days, where they won’t be connected to you. You dragged Becker’s body to a city dump and you tossed him out like the garbage he was.”

“No,” Duo interjected.

Lebreton overrode him. “And then you went back to take care of Vasquez, except you’d run out of time. Agents Chang and Yuy interrupted you before you could get rid of the second body. And even though they’d served in Preventers with you for nine years, they came to the same conclusion: that you had killed the man they found you standing over.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Except for the people that you have killed, isn’t that right? The people you killed because they were criminals, because they were dangerous, because you thought you had no choice. Are you telling us that faced with these men– gang leaders, drug dealers, rapists, child molesters, terrorists– you’re telling us that you never believed you were ridding the earth of people who deserved to die?”

Duo was white-faced, his hands clenched in his lap. “No,” he repeated. “I did not kill them.”

Lebreton shrugged at the jury. “I’m done, your Honour.”

 

**

 

Trowa started stripping before the door swung back and latched. He threw his sock at the back of Duo’s head.

“Gross,” Duo complained. “Now my hair smells like feet.”

"You're tired, and I’m tired. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to this conundrum." He dropped his shirt to the floor, and attacked Duo’s belt buckle. "It's been a long time since we took a nap together in the daytime,” he suggested. He pulled sharply, and Duo’s trousers fell to his calves. “Oops. My bad."

He’d managed to put a smile on Duo’s face. It didn’t quite erase the darkness collecting around his eyes, though. “Come on,” Trowa coaxed, refusing to give up the drop he’d got on Duo’s mood. “We were up at five. Seriously, let’s just lie down." He whirled Duo’s shirt in a circle and tossed it. It landed on the coffee table. "Don't say anything about that, either."

Duo was already straining toward it. He stopped, at Trowa’s hands capturing his wrists, and considered him. Trowa kissed him.

"You can bitch at me later," he promised. He walked backward, dragging Duo along with him. He nudged opened the bedroom door with his shoulders and flipped them about in time to trip Duo onto the bed. Duo bounced, and that little grin grew a bit. Trowa returned it, and picked up Duo’s feet to peel off his socks. "We’re napping,” he whispered, and crawled onto the mattress next to him. He chased a sliver of sunlight down Duo’s hip to a freckle just below his navel. “Close your eyes."

"Or we can fuck,” Duo offered. He covered Trowa’s hand with his. “If you do all the work. I'm not up to heavy lifting."

He smiled despite himself. "You're not decompressing," he reproved.

Duo sighed, and put his arms behind his head. "Addison told me today he thinks the deliberations might last as long as a week," he said.

“Duo.”

He got silence, finally. Duo went mulish and mute, and stared up at the ceiling.

Trowa propped himself on a pillow and kept his sigh on the inside. "So, did you believe him?" he asked.

"It's his job to be right, isn't it?" Duo said.

"No. It's his job to win. That's what lawyers do. Even when they know they're wrong. Which, in this case, he isn't."

"He's doing this pro bono, you know.” Duo’s mouth did something bitter. “Quatre offered up his millions, and Addison turned it down. He says it's nice to fight for a ‘good guy’ once in a while."

"Wow. A real humanitarian." In Trowa’s experience, lawyers didn’t do anything for free. For any reason. He guessed it was a lie, meant to make Duo feel better; or maybe Quatre had asked Addison to say that. It was the sort of thing Quatre would do. The expenses the firm had racked up had to be astronomically beyond an unemployed ex-Preventers’ budget, even combined with Trowa’s contribution. Trowa wasn’t going to burst Duo’s bubble, though.

"He's done an all right job so far," Duo said.

"Yeah. He's good."

"You should hire him next time you get caught with your hand in some third-world dictator's cookie jar."

"I might. He's kinda hot, in a white-bread kind of way."

Duo nudged him. "Don't be jealous. I'm too tired to be amused."

He chuckled at that. "I was trying to make you jealous, dimwit. Sleep if you're tired."

"Believe me, I want to." A beat passed in silence. "Maybe we should switch to eating biscuits in bed instead. That I could get with."

"I don't like sleeping on crumbs."

"I was looking at the jury. All these people picked for being extremely average."

All right. Lebreton’s questions hadn’t been pretty, but he thought Duo had held his own. A lot of it was probably nervous energy Duo just had to run to the end. Duo had his own tensile strength. He could register a blow without shattering. "You’re not that kid from L2 anymore,” he said softly. “The jury saw that. You’re the only one who can’t let him go.”

"That kid is never going to disappear."

"I know. But you're the only one who looks close enough to tell." Trowa thought he understood. Lebreton had stuck his dirty fingers in places Duo himself probably hadn’t ventured. He’d invested his entire character in being this Officer of the Law, the defender of the system, and he’d fought for eleven years, longer than either Wufei or Heero and a tougher fight than either of them had had, making that system as fair as he could personally ensure it to be. And now it was creaming him.

Or maybe he had gone there. "You have survivors’ guilt," Trowa said, and Duo snorted. "What? None of your shrinks ever said so?"

"All of them. Apparently I'm supposed to figure out what to do with it on my own."

"Abandon it?"

"You've got a three-metre radius of 'personal space'. You ever thought about abandoning that?"

“Sometimes. Selectively." That earned him a smile. Duo nudged him again, and Trowa nudged back. He pulled, and Duo shifted to lay on him. “Come on,” he said. “You've been facing worse shit than this since you were a kid."

Duo was a warm pleasant weight on half his chest. The radiator was working overtime to counter the chill from the broken window, an almost inaudible hum in the background. Duo nudged the sheet lower on their hips and replaced it with his arm over Trowa’s belly. He rested his chin on his arm, a brownish blur in the corner of Trowa’s sight. "One of my therapists asked me once what would have happened to me if I'd never left L2," he confided.

Duo was the only one who’d ever tried a psychiatrist. Three years of pills and four of talk therapy, and for all Trowa knew, there would be a new doctor when this was over, charting all the secrets Duo never shared with his friends. It wasn’t that Duo was a hypochondriac, but sometimes he was just the sum of his issues. Or maybe he was a hero for admitting he had issues at all. It wasn’t like the rest of them had ever managed.

"What'd you say?" Trowa asked at last, deciding he wanted to know the answer.

"That I'd probably be dead, or serving twenty-five to life. Dead was more likely, though."

Trowa smiled at that. "They tried like hell, didn't they?"

"Gave it a good fucking shot."

"I've always... respected that about you. You survive."

Duo let out a laugh of self-deprecation. "Yeah, Duo Maxwell and the roaches."

“I always thought we were more like rats.” It was odd to confess it. Duo went still with the question unspoken, and Trowa elaborated his metaphor uneasily. “Scavenge, survive on next to nothing." He had thought about it. It wasn’t just compatibility. It was similarity. They hadn’t lived the same experiences, by any stretch, but even at seventeen Duo had had this look of knowing, like it never had to be said at all, that come flood or fire, you’d find Duo Maxwell on the other side of it, still scraping by. It had been a long time before Trowa had decided it was a quality to admire, because he wasn’t used to admiring things about himself. Adaptability, maybe. Endurance.

Duo broke his quiet. "We don't ever talk about this stuff."

“We don't usually talk."

"True fact." Wait for it, Trowa thought, and realised he was smiling. Sure enough, a beat later, Duo pressed, "Why didn't we ever?"

"I don't like dredging this shit up."

"You don't like dredging any shit up."

"No. I don't." Duo had his therapists, Quatre would have Relena... Wufei could go fuck himself, and Heero too. Trowa said, "Sublimation is comfortable."

"Only until you can't avoid a confrontation any longer."

"I'm talking to you now."

There was shifting, and then Duo sat up, taking some of the sheet with him, twisted around to gaze down. Trowa propped his head on his arm. He couldn’t tell what was going on in Duo’s head, what that close look in his face was. Reading Duo was like reading Sanskrit; all he could tell was that it was meant to be a language, not how any of it translated. That had been exciting, in the beginning, Duo outsmarting him, Trowa giving chase, but they’d never reached a place where both of them spoke with the same words.

"I think a lot about these milestones that I had,” Duo said. “You know, the chances for things to be different, radically different...”

“Life just deals you a hand. You play as well as you can and you hope you keep some chips.”

“I could be a drug dealer right now,” Duo said. “Except the plague happened. Or if I’d been adopted out of the orphanage. Some of the foster homes were really horrible, six or seven kids in a room, some drunk asshole beating the crap out of us if we complained, but there was this old lady, Missus... I don’t remember her name anymore. Missus. I could tell that she cared and it wouldn’t be so bad with her, but I ran away anyway, just out of habit, I guess, and after that no-one tried to adopt me again. I could have been sitting in some grandma’s kitchen baking cookies all through the war.”

“I don’t believe that,” Trowa disagreed. He pulled, and the braid caressed Duo’s cheek. He tried to imagine Duo as a child, a blurred impression of the old devilish grin, the old mischief. He missed that smile. “You were never going to be sitting in anyone’s kitchen while there was a chance to make a difference.”

“I think I’ve spent most of my life being angry. After... the church...” Duo fussed with the sheet, tucking it up over Trowa’s waist, his thumb making a circle around Trowa’s navel. His hand shook.

Post-traumatic stress. I smell burning sometimes, Duo had admitted once, on a particularly bad night, and once at a restaurant some server had dropped a tray and Duo had gone out in the alley to puke until he couldn’t breathe. Trowa had never had that problem, not really, and it wasn’t like Duo was crippled, but God, he was twenty-eight, and for someone who wanted to talk, there was a lot that Duo couldn’t talk about.

“I would spend all my time thinking about how I'd kill the fuckers, if I could just catch them,” Duo said hoarsely. “How they’d never see me coming, until just the last second, just long enough to know who I was and why I’d come after them. And maybe I would be a serial murderer now, except for– except for what, I don’t know."

"Maybe." He brought Duo's hand to his lips, kissed the back of it.

"I'm afraid of being a vic," Duo murmured a moment later. "I always have been. I'm not sure it counts as survival."

"I never once saw you as a victim."

"What happens if I don't get off, Trowa?"

He didn’t like where that was going. "You'll get off."

"What would happen?" Duo repeated stubbornly.

"We'd run."

The play of contrary impulses on Duo’s face was obvious enough. Trowa propped himself on his elbows, sure he wasn’t going to like it.

He didn’t. Duo said, "It doesn't have to be 'we'."

"Fuck you. I can't believe you just said that."

"Your life doesn't have to be over just because mine is!"

"Who says it would be?"

“You act like you don't give a shit, but there's a big difference between having this cushy home base to come back to and having no-where in the Sphere where you can relax and not watch your back. We both know what that reality lives like."

"My whole life's been no-where in the Sphere to relax, Duo. Yours too."

"We're not teenagers anymore. It would be different."

“You're going to get off, you idiot."

He could see the concentration it took to keep Duo’s chest rising and falling in even breaths. Duo’s body was as rigid as a highwire, tense from the bottom up, and his mouth opened a few times before he got the voice together to match it.

"I was pretty stupid about this. I just– panicked. But it wasn't a good decision, was it?"

Trowa sat up for that. Duo’s chin was smooth with a fresh shave. He pressed a kiss on it, then on Duo’s mouth. "It sucked," he said. "You couldn't have lived with yourself if you hadn't done it."

He must’ve hit close to the right thing, because Duo didn’t explode. Some of the hysteria began to ease out of him.

"We're going to be fine," Trowa told him firmly. He coaxed Duo into a kiss, and lay back. “You're insane," he added gently.

Duo’s eyes dropped down to his own fingers, splayed out over Trowa’s solar plexus. "I'm not going to ruin your life, Trowa. I'm not making you part of my collateral damage."

"I'm not worried about that." He snagged hold of Duo’s hair and dragged him down inch by inch. "You're staying here. Understand?"

Duo bent to kiss him, his mouth open. And maybe it said something that they hadn’t often kissed unless it was leading to sex, when they’d been together before. A lot of sex, certainly, that was a language they both spoke, but not romance, not the soft loving looks that Quatre had been giving Relena, and Trowa was willing to bet those two would save the bed for the wedding night. He didn’t understand that, personally, not really. Sex cut out a lot of bull, got to the essentials, and had the advantage of a guaranteed happy ending. But there they were lying in bed, and not fucking. For once. And for once it felt as right as sex always did.

I love you, Duo had said. It was a solid lump of weight sitting in his gut, undigestible, and he didn’t, just didn’t know what it meant. To Duo; for them. If it changed things or if it was– an apologetic prelude to a good-bye.

"I'm better with you,” Trowa said. “If that... makes a difference."

He saw he’d touched Duo. It was in a blink and the tentative way his lips stayed parted, the way Duo’s hand curved to his cheek. Trowa turned his face to kiss Duo’s palm. Then Duo lay down again, and resumed his spot against Trowa’s body. It was a good sensation. Duo’s weight there, still and warm on him. Secure.

 

**

 

“Venti soy-milk latte with a shot of ginseng and whey protein,” Trowa said, and put it in Duo’s hand. “It tastes just about as gross as it sounds.”

Duo managed a brief smile. “Thanks.”

“Sure. That’s four fifty.”

Duo rolled his eyes, and dug in his pocket for change. “I wanted a muffin, too.”

“They didn’t have anything made out of organic grass or tree bark or whatever it is you eat.” He spotted Wufei coming in the lobby, and tracked his progress across the marble floor. “You ready for today?” he asked.

“As I’m going to be.” Duo noticed who he was looking at. “I’m going inside,” he said briefly. “I just want a minute to put my head down.”

“Yeah.” He brushed his knuckles across Duo’s cheekbone. “I’ll follow soon.”

He waited long enough to be sure that Duo, and an escort of Preventers who still insisted on showing up every morning and afternoon to ensure their safety, ventured off to the courtroom. He left the shelter of his large window and put himself on intercept. He caught up with Wufei about five yards from the collision Wufei’d been planning with Addison and Kiplis, who were sipping coffees of their own on one of the lobby benches.

"One of the uniforms just told me they’ve had reporters sneaking in from the west wing,” he lied, randomly choosing the first place he thought of that would keep Wufei far away from lawyers and other policemen. “I need your help securing the area.”

Wufei glowered suspiciously at him. “That’s not a street-side exit,” he said.

“Good idea,” Heero grunted. He joined them, dropping a hand to Wufei’s shoulder and reaching for his pocket comm. “Eagle and Phoenix moving to the west wing. We’ve got reports of unscreened people coming in.”

Wufei opened his mouth to protest. Trowa didn’t move, and didn’t back down.

"We can cover it,” Heero said. "We're going. Now." He nodded to Trowa, and took his partner with him at a crisp stride.

“What was that about?” Addison called to Trowa. “Something wrong with the security?”

“Not a thing,” Trowa answered. The vibration at his belt caught his attention, and he unhooked his mobile. New text message. He punched in his code, and held the screen into the light.

_coming to SF. c u 2morro._

It was from Quatre. Trowa blinked. Then he replaced his phone, and smiled at Addison. “Sorry,” he said. “Where were we?”

Addison binned his coffee cup and joined Trowa. He glanced around them, then murmured, "I don't want you to be surprised. This isn't going as well as we hoped. Lebreton got a lot of what he wanted, yesterday."

"Then we're going to have to try harder, aren't we?"

"We've still got cross with Duo. He'll do a great job."

Kiplis entered their little conference as well, her thumbs moving independently on her PDA as she talked. "We're worried about jurors Three, Seven, and Twelve," she said. “Three was swayed by the forensics. Twelve doesn’t like Duo, after yesterday. And frankly, Two is a wild card.”

Trowa tried to picture them in his mind. Seven was the black woman. He thought they might have won her over. Twelve was a Latino man who glowered a lot. He thought Two might be the mousy man who looked like a computer salesman, a shut-in with a vivid imagination fueled by online battleship games. "Do you have something to offer that will tilt the scales?"

Addison said, "The best thing we can do is just play to the facts. And bring up the copycat murders that got dismissed from the indictment."

"That's all?"

"We've made our case," Kiplis answered. "It's as strong as it’s going to get. All Lebreton has is smoke and mirrors."

"Pardon me if that doesn't fill me with confidence." Trowa fingered his mobile. "I'll give it some thought."

Addison held up both hands in protest. "We're not telling you so you'll go out and do anything, Trowa. We're telling you just to give you a heads up. We could have a verdict by this time tomorrow, you know?"

Kiplis closed her PDA and slipped it into her purse. "That jury’s going to be out at least a day for each juror we haven’t convinced."

"Yeah, I hear you. Sorry." He wasn’t, particularly, but it did no-one any good for him to lose his cool in front of them.

Addison squeezed his shoulder. "We’re doing our best, Trowa. We’ll make it happen.”

Addison, Trowa thought, would be a much better liar if he kept track of his own lies. He let the lawyers get a few steps ahead, and took out his phone.

 _Kettles on, waters boiling,_ he typed, and sent.

 

**

 

Addison put up another card, this one displaying the floorplan of an apartment, marked with coloured circles showing the location of Vasquez’s body and the blood from Craig’s body. “Run us through what happened when you arrived.”

“One of the other residents of the complex was fleeing the building when I arrived. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me she’d heard repeated gun shots. I went into the building. When I got to Vasquez’s apartment, there was no noise inside, but the door was open. I went in.”

Wufei was in his usual spot, two rows back from Trowa on the aisle. His stoic expression gave no clues to what he was thinking. Heero leaned against the wall in the back, his arms crossed over his chest, his bulky Preventers jacket winning him a small circle of space amongst the other onlookers in the overcrowded galley.

Trowa rubbed the fold line on his trousers again, trying to smooth it out. Duo’s story made perfect sense. It should have been completely believable. Except that, taken cynically, it could also sound like so much bull.

“The prosecution has made much of the fact that you were alone in Vasquez’s apartment for nearly ten minutes before two more agents arrived on the scene, at which point they found and arrested you.” Addison put his hands in his pockets, looking between Duo and the floorplan. “What were you doing during all that time? Are there special procedures that might explain why it took you so long?”

Duo nodded abruptly again. “The first responsibility of any agent approaching a suspected crime scene is to ensure that the space is clear of all possible danger. When I entered Vasquez’s apartment, all the lights were off and it was very dark inside. I thought I saw a body, but I couldn’t just stop to look at it. It took me approximately two minutes to cover the entire apartment. I started to turn on lights then, and– the place was just covered with drug paraphernalia. I went to check on the body to be sure he wasn’t still alive, but then I had take care of three open flames. When I got back to Vasquez, I realised there was too much blood, and I searched for a second body, but it wasn’t in the apartment. At this point, Agents Yuy and Chang arrived.”

Trowa evaluated the jury in small glances, unsure if they were buying it. Two was the mousy guy, a bad comb-over, a suit that didn’t quite fit. He was taking a lot of notes while Duo talked, and Trowa couldn’t remember if he’d done that before. The black woman was frowning and looking at the floorplan poster.

“Why did you decide to go alone that night?” Addison asked. “You don’t have a partner, but I can’t imagine you thought you’d be safe, confronting local gang leaders in their own buildings like that. What did you think you could accomplish if you showed up, one agent against who knew how many men?”

“It’s not like in the movies,” Duo said. “A million cops in kevlar don’t bust in with guns blazing.”

“Still, it seems a little overconfident of you.”

Duo rubbed his mouth. “I guess. Maybe. Maybe it’s hard to imagine how fast everything happened. I got the call, I was already in the neighbourhood. It was the chance to stop something from going down, versus the possibility of missing it entirely. It’s never an optimal situation, ending up with a room full of dead bodies. So that’s what I was thinking. If I could get there in time, I could stop it.”

He’d gone there to stop Wufei, Trowa realised suddenly. Either his informant had known, or Duo had put it together, and he’d gone running hoping to stop Wufei. Reckless. So unbelievably reckless.

And in a second Trowa was thinking about all the asinine risks Duo had ever taken, all the bad odds he’d gambled on because he believed it was the right thing to do. That he personally could save someone’s ass, whether in the short or the long run, and that it was worth the personal damage. Duo’s mind was always working, and he was smart enough, usually, to know when he was being stupid, but over and over again, he did it anyway.

And in a second there, Trowa felt gutless by comparison. No-one had stuck their neck out for Duo, not really, not the way he did on a daily basis for all of them. They’d all sat by, every damn one of them, letting Duo go down in a blaze because he’d told them to let him. If it had been any of them, damn straight Duo wouldn’t have listened to an idiotic idea like covering for a murderer. He’d have been out tracking down the truth, shoving everyone’s face in it, and watching their backs while he did it, because that was the kind of friend Duo was, the kind of friend who said hell or high water and not only knew what it meant, but knew you could face it better with two than just one. But they’d left him alone with a secret he shouldn’t have taken on in the first place, all of them so concerned with keeping it quiet, so concerned with pretending they weren’t as messed up as they were because admitting it meant admitting they’d let it get that way, and that implied a slow decline and they didn’t want to write off the lives they’d somehow patched together out of the days where a little effort was all that could be managed. They were all guilty, and they’d let Duo take the rap, every one of them.

Trowa reached over the woman next to him and grabbed the sketchpad from the trial artist. He ignored her spluttered protest as he flipped to a new page. The charcoal pencil scratched across the paper as he scrawled ask him if he’s covering for someone. He ripped the page free and leaned over the rail to jab Kiplis in the back.

She read the note. Then she waved subtly for Addison’s attention. Addison stepped back to take it from her hand, and he read it while Duo described his own arraignment. Addison looked sharply at Trowa.

Do it, Trowa urged silently. He could see Addison putting it together, the thoughts racing over his face. Trowa nodded firmly.

“Duo.” Addison whirled back, interrupting Duo mid-sentence. “I need you to take a deep breath here. I need you to just sit still for a moment, all right?”

Duo looked startled. He glanced at the judge uncertainly. The ADA came to his feet, but he looked confused as well.

Addison put both hands on the bar. “I’ve got to know you pretty well in the past month. I know you’re a good man with a strong sense of responsibility, maybe even a misplaced sense of responsibility. So I need you to take this moment to be absolutely sure that you’re not lying even by omission.”

“I’m not lying,” Duo said automatically.

“It’s not enough to be not guilty, Duo, not if you know who really did this and you haven’t told anyone.”

Duo went white-faced, but the weak protest he made was nothing compared to Lebreton’s. The ADA shot to his feet with a clatter, almost shouting. “Your Honour!” he yelled. “He can’t introduce a new theory of the crime this late in the trial–“

“It’s not a new theory,” Addison retorted swiftly, swivelling to face the judge. Padilla was frowning deeply, but she didn’t immediately stop him. “If Mr Maxwell has any information about someone else who committed these murders, it’s reasonable doubt and the jury deserves to hear about it.”

“You’re on very thin ice,” Padilla said slowly. “Be careful how you walk this.”

“Your Honour–“

“Duo,” Addison repeated, cutting Lebreton off. He gripped the rail again, and Duo shifted back uncertainly. “You’ve lost your job over this, people who’ve known you for decades wonder whether you’re a murderer, and you’ve sat through all of this when you didn’t have to, because you’re covering for someone. You’re covering from someone.”

Duo fumbled to catch Trowa’s eyes. He looked raw and fragile, like a piece of antique porcelain. Towa dug his fingernails into his palm. He was sorry, and he wasn’t. It was time to freaking move, even if it hurt.

Addison was tense in anticipation. “Don’t look at the jury,” he commanded. “Just look at me.” Everyone in the court was hanging on this now, and the artist next to Trowa hadn’t even demanded back her pad yet. The jury all looked confused, but the suspense was catching on.

“Someone you know,” Addison said finally. “Maybe even someone you love. Someone you’ve known a long time. I know you, Duo. You give someone your loyalty and they have it forever.” He made a grab for Duo when Duo squirmed away, catching his wrist and holding him physically in place. “I know you, Duo. And I know that a person who goes through what you have doesn’t become a cop unless they have a true devotion to justice. If you’re protecting someone, even someone you think deserves your loyalty, you’re compromising on something equally central to your character. You don’t have to tell me who it is. That can wait for right now. All you have to tell me right now is the truth.”

Some instinct, some feeling of eyes where they shouldn’t be pricked his neck. Trowa turned his head. Wufei was there, sitting on Duo’s side of the room, uniformed, like every other day, like he was flying wing for his old friend. He was as grey as his shirt. His shoulders dropped just the smallest increment; and then the entire picture rearranged. His eyes settled on Trowa, and blinked once.

“Duo?” Addison prodded.

And even though it was a private moment between the two of them, with all the drama in the front of the room between Duo and the judge and the attorneys, Trowa went cold in the pit of his gut. You sick bastard, he thought numbly. You really did do it.

Addison straightened, tapping the rail once into the silence. “All right,” he said softly. “I think you’ve answered my question.”

 

**

 

Addison touched Duo’s arm, and they rose as Padilla accepted the paper from the clerk. Padilla read quickly, and handed it back. Trowa scanned the faces of the jury members, but his own anxiety was getting in the way. He couldn’t decipher their poker-blank expressions.

“The jury have reached a verdict,” Padilla said. “Madam Forewoman, in the matter of the People versus Duo Maxwell, on six counts of homicide, how do the jury declare?”

It was the black woman who stood. She looked at the judge, not at Duo, her hands folded in front of her. “Your Honour,” she said, “we find the Defendant not guilty on all counts.”

“Yes!” Addison jerked his arms. Duo swayed just slightly on his feet, but Addison grabbed him in an embrace, and then Kiplis and Virbach were hugging him next. Trowa felt a rush of heat, then a moment of light-headedness. He stood, too, as Duo turned to look for him.

Thank you, Duo mouthed.

A group of Preventers went past him, over the railing, all of Duo’s colleagues eager to congratulate him on the victory. Trowa kept watching for a minute after Duo was distracted, watched him shake hands and accept the well-wishes he’d earned. Then he slipped out along the wall, and found a solitary spot to wait outside the courtroom. He stared at the ceiling blindly, and concentrated on just breathing regularly.

“Hey,” Quatre said.

Trowa opened his eyes. “Wasn’t sure you’d made it,” he said.

Quatre smiled at him. “You knew I’d be here.” He leaned against the wall beside Trowa, their shoulders just brushing. “You all right?” he asked softly.

Trowa shrugged off the concern. “I’m not the one who just got the verdict.”

“No?” Quatre mimicked his shrug. “Try not to be so ashamed when people figure out that you care.”

“You’re managing me,” Trowa reproved him.

“Love is tough. You’re lazy.” Quatre smiled at him, though, and there was no sting to the words. “You did well, you know.”

“Quat–“

“Just let me say something nice?” Quatre faced him. “What I want to say is– What I want to say is that I realise this wasn’t just about Duo. This has really been your trial, too. And what you’ve done for him has... It’s brought you back from a lot of wasted years, Trowa.”

There was no room around the tightness in his throat for the snappy comeback he wanted. “I didn’t do it for that,” he said finally.

“I know. That’s why you can be redeemed by it.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Quatre smiled, and reached up to fix the lay of Trowa’s collar. Trowa let him. When Quatre’s fingers rested on his tie, he bent, and brushed their lips together.

“Dumbass,” he whispered, and smoothed back the little golden cowlick one last time.

Quatre stepped back first. “Take Duo out the back,” he advised. “Let Addison handle the reporters.”

He nodded, and straightened. “What about Wufei?”

“I’m going to Une right now. I’ve got it done.”

“Keep me updated.”

“I will.”

The courtroom was almost empty when Trowa went back inside. The jury was gone, and so was the judge; some of the Preventers had lingered in a group. Heero and Wufei were gone already. The noise of the reporters outside was kicking up as they realised the story was about to break.

Addison saw him coming, and offered Trowa his hand when they drew even. “It was a good win,” the attorney said jovially. “You coming back with us for the drinking part?"

"No, but thanks,” Trowa declined. “I think it needs to sink in, first.”

Duo was coming out of the shell-shock. Over Kiplis’ shoulder, he met Trowa’s eyes.

"Sure, sure." Addison was smiling warmly. He clasped Trowa's hand again, then let him go. Trowa beckoned, and Duo joined him. “We’ll see you,” Trowa added, and began to move for the rear exit.

“You know, I thought it was you, when you passed me that note," Addison added suddenly.

Trowa paused. "I figured you would."

Addison’s mouth quirked. "Whoever it was, I hope he was worth it. Duo, it was a pleasure."

Duo managed a small smile. “Thanks,” he said. “All of you.”

Duo was silent while they walked the back halls. His hand was dry and twitchy in Trowa’s, like he didn’t want to be held, and finally Trowa let go.

“You want a coffee, maybe?” he asked. “Or we can go straight home and do shots off each other’s stomachs.”

He didn’t get the laugh he’d been aiming for. Duo rubbed his nose, shook his head minutely.

Jesus, Trowa thought. Duo couldn’t give himself one hour to enjoy the win. He could sense the clock ticking.

A uniformed guard buzzed them through the secure door to the judges’ private parking lot. Outside, it was a virtual wind tunnel; the loose hair around Duo’s face began to dance. Trowa folded his coat closed against the bite of it, and faced Duo.

“It’s just you, me, and the Volvos,” he said. “So if you have to get something off your chest, this is the place.”

Framed against the grey sky and the white courthouse bricks, Duo looked washed of colour, too, a stark figure that was a little too lean, a little too deadly. His hands were clenched, but he shoved his fists savagely into his pockets.

"Am I the only one who gives a flying fuck about the law?" he said finally.

Trowa shook his head. "What's your problem with this? You got off, and exactly the way you wanted to. Without implicating anyone else."

Grudgingly, Duo answered, "I'm not ungrateful."

“Aren't you?” A gust of cold air made him blink, and Duo was like an afterimage, not quite solid. “What did you want, Duo? Really."

"I don't know. I...."

Trowa curled his hand about Duo’s neck and pulled his head down. “You can go back to whatever life you want now," he said gently. "Just let it go. You've been cleared. I don't think they're even looking any more, and that's probably the best thing."

"What life?” Duo demanded. “I've been fired, remember?"

"That was bullshit."

"It's not bullshit. It’s not even just covering their asses."

"You didn't do anything wrong. And you’ve been cleared from what everyone else thought you did wrong. They have no grounds."

"I didn't do anything wrong, but there's a lot I didn't do right. And I protected a murderer. What's an officer of the law who's willing to ignore it when it feels right?"

"Did you? Because no one has any evidence that you did."

"I got lucky. And Heero and Wufei were sloppy all over this. They'll be lucky if they don't get the axe, too, IAB have always wanted us out–"

"They'll survive it if they do. All three of you will. Une’s probably already writing you a new contract.”

"I'm not going back. Even if they ask me to."

"Like hell." That surprised him. "Why?"

“Put it together," Duo said harshly. "I covered up a murder. Which means I covered up all the other murders, because it's the same perp on all of them. And there will be more."

"Shut up,” Trowa overrode him. “Just shut it right now. Sometimes you're so fucking stupid." Duo resisted when he stepped in close and pressed him back against the wall. He mimed a deep kiss, pressing his lips just barely to Duo’s, covering their faces with his hands in Duo’s hair. "We haven’t even left the damn courthouse. Are you one hundred percent certain no-one hears you, that there aren’t cameras here? They can still bring charges against you. Accessory after the fact, criminal conspiracy. You give them even the littlest bit of evidence that the cover-up story wasn’t just a courtroom stunt and they’ll have you back on trial so fast you won’t know what hit you."

Duo’s body was humming under his. It took a long time. Trowa kissed him for real, until Duo responded, fit his palms to the slight curve of muscle in Duo’s back, and finally let him go.

“Tell me what to do,” Duo whispered.

"Fight for it,” he said. “Even if it means taking him down."

"I don't– I don't know if I have that in me. Even if I should."

"You just said it wouldn't stop. Do you think he can live with that?"

"Lived with it this long."

Wufei hadn’t been at the verdict. It was at least possible that Duo was right, and Wufei could reconcile this and keep right on the path he was following. But only if they let him.

"Have you talked to him?" he asked finally. “Really talked.”

"No. I don't know that there's anything to say."

"Except that you let him ruin your life."

"So, what? I yell for a while? He's not gonna confess to make me feel better."

"Maybe he'll confess to fix himself." Trowa heard the buzz of the mag locks on the door being released a few seconds before the door popped open. One of the judges emerged, giving them a distracted glance. Trowa nodded as civilly as he could manage, arranging his features into a pleasantly blank expression. It worked; the judge ignored them and walked off to his car.

"Let’s just go home," Trowa resumed, turning back to Duo. “We can finish this–“

"I'm going to my place," Duo said abruptly.

That took a moment to register. “Do you want a ride?" he asked slowly. “Is this– I don’t know, is this a permanent transfer, or is this an ‘I want to pack the rest of my stuff’?”

"I don't know!" Duo pushed his hair out of his face. He pushed past Trowa and headed for the exit. "I'll see you later,” he offered over his shoulder. “I'll call you."

It wasn’t supposed to be that fast, Trowa was thinking. It was supposed to be a drawn-out fight, because Trowa always won those; it was supposed to be a lot of broken ceramics and some hurtful words and sex on every half-way flat surface in the condo, and then things were supposed to go back to normal. It wasn’t supposed to be Duo walking away before he even got a chance.

He pulled his mobile out of his belt and dialed Duo’s cell number. Duo was in front of the stairwell, hand on the latch. He could hear the ring from across the lot.

Duo looked at his phone, and glanced back once. He didn’t answer it.

When he was gone, Trowa shut off his phone, and went back inside.


	12. Twelve

**18:21 Friday**  
**11 April 208**

 

He couldn’t breathe.

He sat with his head low between his hands. A trickle of sweat threaded down his back. He could hear the verdict in his head repeating on a crazy kilter until it was drowned out by a staticky roar that grew louder and louder until he thought he–

It had been Duo’s case.

That was the grand irony. They’d been at dinner, just him and Duo, both of them tired, struggling to stay awake in the low lights of the Persian restaurant that stayed open past closing to serve two men in uniform. He’ll get off, Duo had said, nose down, dim-eyed in a glass of wine. There should be an eraser for guys like this. Something to wipe the stain off.

Wufei had agreed, had more than agreed– he’d been unable to stop thinking about it, unable to shake the scene from his head, unable to so much as sleep without it invading his dreams. Six days later, he’d come to himself with his hands wrapped around a dead man’s throat, staring down into dead eyes. He’d told himself-

He’d promised himself it was one time, a kind of secret gift, a sideways win that someone like Duo would appreciate all the more for never knowing who had given it. That was justification. That was justice.

Then had come the anxiety. Then had come the sick certainty that he’d be caught and his life would be over, his freedom, his precious and already endangered chances to life a life of meaning and purpose. But no-one had tracked it to him. No-one had so much as questioned one evil man’s death. It was like- a pass. A wink and a nod.

Permission.

There were always more evil men.

He was going to vomit, only he never vomitted. Never. Not when his colony vaporised or Meiran died or when he’d killed Treize. Every time he’d wanted to, had suffered this terrifying seizure of every muscle and nerve, but it wouldn’t come, something must be wrong with him that he couldn’t, because this...

He’d pulled it off. He’d actually pulled it off. Murdered with no consequences.

Well– a few consequences.

Most of them paid for by a man who couldn’t have been a better friend if Wufei had actually asked him to do it. He certainly would have faced a different fate if it had been him at the defendant’s table, not Duo.

The scrape of the door along the linoleum was his warning. There was someone coming. Wufei straightened quickly, cementing a mask of indifference in place. He stood to his open locker, prepared to appear busy.

It was Heero entering. The door swung shut on silent hinges- he was a quiet man, a quiet partner. Not partner. Not now. Now they all knew him.

“Thought you would be here,” Heero said.

Wufei propped his gym bag open on the bench and dressed himself in clean sweats. As he stripped, Heero ventured closer, slow in checking to be sure there were no other Preventers in the room. The showers were all off, the steam room empty. It was late in the day, and a Friday night, for that matter.

“You didn’t stay for the verdict even,” Heero said.

“I was there.”

“And?”

“And I’m happy for him. He can get back to living life.” Wufei bent to wipe his bare feet, and pulled on new socks. “What do you want from me?”

"I think you can do a hell of a lot better."

Heero was glaring at him, thick brows pulled low in disapproval and loss. Wufei tried to mask his twitch of shame in irritation. “I will,” he answered. “If Duo wants my life, my badge, my confession-”

The roaring was back in his head. No coherent thought could pass that barrier. He let Heero claim his shoes, just to stop them touching.

“I've been thinking,” Heero began slowly; or maybe Wufei just heard him at a lag, as time stretched thin and strange. “I've been thinking- what to do- with you. You and I--”

The door, again. They turned together. Duo stood there. Of course Duo. He ought to have given back his key, but locks had never kept him out of anywhere he wanted to be.

Wufei’s stomach turned over and settled hollowly. "Hello."

Duo’s eyes flicked to Heero. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the door. Heero hovered stubbornly for a few moments longer, but Duo’s level gaze didn’t waver. To Wufei, Heero said, "I'll be outside."

In sudden dread Wufei would have given an arm to keep him in the room. He didn’t want to fight with Duo in front of Heero; he didn’t want to fight with Duo alone. Heero left, ducking around Duo through the door. Wufei swallowed, and sat.

Duo came closer. He hadn’t changed from court; he wore a dark suit and in those long legs, he looked like he was stalking. He didn’t look to either side, down the rows of lockers, didn’t glance to the showers the way Heero had. He just came stalking near, and Wufei watched it with horrified wonder. He hadn’t seen that since the war. Duo had a deadly glamour. It struck fear and admiration in equal measure.

He spoke before he could form a determination not to. “It wasn’t supposed to be you,” he said.

Duo halted a foot from him. "Yeah? So who was it supposed to be?"

“You should have let me finish it.”

"Oh, yeah, I'm the idiot." Duo slammed the locker shut. "Hey, fuck you too, buddy. Some plan of action."

"Are we speaking of plans? You shouldn't have done this. How long did you know?" Duo stood there seething with violence, and Wufei only barely restrained himself from taking that step that lay between them. He lowered his hands with an effort. “Why didn't you do something to stop me, instead of just covering for me?"

"Why didn't I do something? I had ten fucking minutes to figure out whether you were a victim or a psychopath, and you can god-damn thank me for not turning on you the way you did on me!"

It almost felt good to speak honestly about it. He'd carried it for years in comfort, but suddenly it was a burden he would have hurled away from him if he could. "Don't pretend you didn't know,” he countered. “For months, probably. You're not stupid."

"I'm supposed to look at my friend for murder? That night, Wufei. That fucking night, and I didn't know what to do, and you didn't give me a chance to ask you, did you? You stood there looking at me like I was guilty, and I didn't know what to do!"

“Neither did I.”

A painful and worthless confession. Not the right confession. He'd forgot what it felt like to trust, had deliberately retracted trust in the knowledge that he himself was untrustworthy. He had failed, when Duo had turned up that night in Vasquez's flat, there with the body, like a nightmare breaking everything open before he was- ready. But Wufei didn't have the excuse of panic. Neither of them did. There had been choice, and even mutual- understanding. Acknowledgment. He remembered that look, those eyes coming to meet his in the interrogation room, the first time Duo had looked him in the face that night, and that look had said- _We both know what's been done, and we both know_ \- They had both known what the way forward would be.

"So what now?” Duo said. “Am I supposed to believe you won't turn around and do it again, now that the spotlight's off? Am I supposed to follow you around for the rest of our lives, ducking all the shit for you?"

He shook his head, but it wouldn't clear. He turned away to fumble with his shoes, to cover the tremor in his hands. "I want to stop. I mean to stop, damn it. I need you to believe that."

"Who's the next one?” Duo pushed. “Another low-level junkie like Vasquez? Another retired child molester?"

Wufei gripped the bench. "No. It was– no... No-one."

"You've already got him all picked out, haven't you?" Duo was in his space, crowding him, radiating that untenable anger. "No? Well, all right then. Why don’t we go back upstairs? We can go through all the open cases. There’s some real scumbags in town. If not, we can take a walk to the floor. Maybe we could go straight down to the cells and just pick one in holding. I mean, why bother with the hunt? Just a time-waster, and it's not like anyone suspects you, any more."

"Don't do this. Please. I've told you, I'm finished–"

"Or we could take a drive. Pick up dinner, finger a perp, dump him in the Bay on the way home. I noticed you don't do women. What's that about?"

"I don't." His hands were trembling. He had never wanted to hit anyone so much in his life. Duo stood there glaring hot holes in Wufei with eyes that promised more death than forgiveness, and Wufei couldn’t get in a full breath around the choking– hopelessness. "Stop it,” he said mindlessly. “Just stop. I know I was wrong. I know. You’re finished with me, with our friendship, fine, I can accept that. I have no choice. Go home and leave me alone, Duo!"

"That’s not the way the world works. That’s not how I work. And I guess I'm just as stupid as you are."

Wufei wiped his upper lip of sweat. He hoped Heero was guarding the door outside, and half hoped as well that Heero was off getting Une. "You're not stupid,” he said, “but you knew, and you decided. We're both guilty men."

He fully expected the burst of motion, and he was ready. Duo took an underhanded swing at him, slicing up toward the chest, but Wufei blocked with a shove, pushing Duo back into the lockers. He caught the force of Duo’s next rush and tried to heave Duo over his hip, but Duo held his arm in an iron grip and flipped back to his feet. There was a stinging kick to his knee, a feint left, and he blocked wrong, just a second too slow to anticipate. Duo's shoulder hit Wufei’s chest, and they went down. There was a double impact– his back to the tiles, and Duo’s fist across his face. He heard the crack of his own nose breaking. A wave of acute pain washed over him, and instinctively he curled.

Duo didn’t land another hit. Heero had come running in at the noise. He pulled Duo off of Wufei and held him back in a half-nelson, bodily preventing him from moving. Wufei clawed for his gym towel and pressed it to his face.

Duo was panting. Wufei’s blood was on his hand, his sleeve.

"Are you finished?” Wufei demanded. He checked the towel. There was a great crimson stain from the bleeding, a blotch swimming in his tearing vision. He wiped angrily at his eyes. “We're supposed to be friends."

"Friends don't do this!" Duo tried to shake Heero off. "Friends are people you see on weekends, talk to during the week. People you care about. People you like. We're not friends, Wufei."

"You left, Duo, what was I supposed to do?"

"I didn't _leave_. I _transferred_." Duo wrenched hard, and Heero finally let him go. “I wasn't making a difference in Homicide. We used to talk about that."

“None of us make a difference,” Wufei retorted harshly. “We used to talk about _that_.”

"We can. We should. And you feel that way too, which is why you started your own little one-man butcher-shop justice league."

He swallowed a thick coppery mouthful. Not broken, his nose, just badly battered.

Duo's case. It had been Duo's case. Unsolved. He had solved it. Closed it. Duo of all people should understand.

Understand.

Maybe just enough. It was Duo who made the next move, then. The Duo who knew how to forgive, the Duo who knew how to reach out when Wufei could only stand still.

"Come to Narc with me,” Duo pleaded, voice cracking roughly. “I'll be your partner. You'll see how it feels to make a difference."

“Heero's my partner now."

Heero spoke quietly. "I’ll understand."

“I don't think I can stop,” he whispered.

Duo took his wrist. "You listen to me. You owe me. I know you didn't ask for the debt, but that doesn't make it disappear. You owe me to try to be better."

“Moises Aguilar.” They were watching, Heero dim in Duo's shadow, both of them sad-eyed. “He’s a pimp,” Wufei said. “Dealer. Likes to beat up his women. He killed his mistress. I know, because I’m the one who closed that case, but he traded on one of his associates and got immunity. His cousin is a councilman. He’s next. He’s the one I’ve chosen. I’ve been watching him, I know his habits, I know every abominable thing he’s ever even thought–"

"He's a nobody." Duo's voice was like sawdust, whispers rough-edged. "He's scum under your boot.”

"Maybe I'll be caught this time. Duo, it's-- what I want. You're asking me to promise things I can't give you. Be reasonable. Be a Preventer.”

“When did that ever do us any good?” Duo’s pained smile had a large dose of irony. "I should have spoken up. I know that. That's why I went there, to Vasquez’s apartment. Because it clicked, the-- The way all the cases were from different departments. The way all the deaths were different, but the clean-up was always the same. The way you suddenly had no life when this started years ago." He didn’t wait for Wufei’s interruption. "We used to see each other all the time. We really were friends. But you practically dropped out of my life after I went over to Narcotics. And you may not realise it, but you took Heero with you."

“And you got Trowa. You left first, Duo."

Duo looked shocked. Wufei wished he hadn’t said that, but there was no way to take it back. It wasn’t even entirely true. He’d been happy for them both, glad for them when Duo had slowly drifted away from those weeknights at the bar with friends to the evenings in with the man he was making a life with. If it had left Wufei a little lonelier, a little more solitary, that was entirely Wufei’s fault, and it was beyond shameful to suggest Duo bore any blame for what had followed.

"Duo," he began awkwardly.

"No."

"No?"

"If you want to destroy your life, you do it without my approval and without my help."

Wufei scrubbed his face, dug the tips of his fingers into his temples. "Should I ask Heero, then?"

Duo pointed at the man watching them silently. "Heero's not the one who went down for you," he accused.

"You're refusing me."

"If you can walk away and deal with that, then fine. Do it."

"I don't think either of us is–“

"They'll know who you are even if they put you in protective custody. They'll buy off your guards. They'll corner you. They'll beat you to a pulp and they'll tear you open and set you on fire and when they're done with all that, they _might_ let you die. That's what they do to cops in prison."

He covered Duo’s mouth with his hand. Duo blinked away tears at him, and one fell down his flushed cheek. "Then I'll die,” Wufei told him gently. “And it will be a waste. But it will be an end for me, and you'll be free of this."

Duo turned to Heero. "Why don't you do something, say something," he appealed. His voice broke.

Heero hesitated too long. Duo cursed, and threw the gym bag at him. It bounced off Heero’s arm, raised to block the blow, but distracted him long enough for Duo to attack Wufei again, landing solid hits to the collarbone and then the stomach before Wufei caught both his hands and restrained him.

The rattle of the latch stopped it escalating further. Everyone froze.

Quatre’s voice followed. "Unlock this door right now," he said grimly through the wood.

It was Wufei who moved first. He released Duo, and passed Heero going to the door. Quatre waited no longer than it took to unlatch the door, turning himself to lock it again behind him.

"You all have quite the audience," he told them. “People heard you fighting. They were worried enough to alert Une.”

Wufei glared at the door. "They have better things to do."

Quatre raised his eyebrows. "You can't expect them not to be curious. Especially when the three of you can't be bothered to keep your voices down."

The calm reprimand was jarring after Duo’s strident emotionality. Wufei straightened unconsciously. "This didn't have to happen," he tried again.

"No, it didn't. I'm glad you realise that."

He was being stung from all sides. "Why are you here?" he demanded; and then was embarrassed by his own petulance. Quatre’s expression reflected nothing but his own chagrin.

"I'm here to pick you up," Quatre said after a pause.

Even Duo looked surprised. Thrown, Wufei stuttered. "I don't understand."

"I have a mid-level position in my staff that's become available. I've hired you. You'll serve me in security." Quatre stepped closer, bearing down on him, slight young man with no smiles now, no give, no release. "We're leaving today."

He opened his mouth to protest. A position. Leaving– he was thrown into a cocktail of uncertainty, fear, hope, pandemonium in his own head. Desperation to do something right, for all of them– for Duo.

He sounded hoarse to his own ears, and it had nothing to do with all the yelling they’d done. "All the clouds on his reputation will be gone if I do?"

Quatre stood almost nose to nose with him. "Let me be very clear on this,” he said. “I’m not here to bargain with you. You are coming with me."

Duo wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Quatre, a poignant, piercing hope alight in his face. “No charges?"

"No charges. Assuming that the behaviour– which we are never going to speak about– ends right now. I want your word, Wufei."

He didn’t give it immediately. "Security?" he said.

Face to steely face, Quatre said, "Give me your word. Right now."

They stood there, united front, all of them loyal, committed to stopping him, to kill off this urge in him that had almost destroyed them. Like they were a unit again.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever lose the need in him that had tumbled him onto this path. But maybe the need to stop was bigger, more important. Maybe he wanted it badly enough to be sure he would. His will had always been strong. He knew that about himself, at least.

He inclined his head stiffly. "My word, then."

Quatre nodded. "Now swear to me that if you ever, ever feel..." He drew a deep breath, and the severity of his remoteness slowly eased. "If you ever feel overwhelmed, or tired, if it ever hurts that much, you have to promise to come to me, Wufei."

The sheer invasiveness of that demand was shocking. It had never been Wufei's way to go running to anyone with his cares. Even the desire to had been trained out of him from the time he'd learned to walk, that even Duo had never managed to plumb out of him. "I can't– historically– confidences don't come easily to me," he tried to explain. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

"You will promise it,” Quatre said relentlessly. “Because there's no choice for you here. You will promise me."

Where had the weight pressing on his chest come from? "I'm not– I’m not damaged, damn it!”

"Then you've got to be the healthiest person I've ever met, because there are still days when I want to lay down and die because of what I did."

He fumbled behind himself for the bench. His eyes stung again, but it wasn’t the soreness from his bruised nose. He knew Duo and Heero were still there, watching Quatre decimate him inch by inch, humiliation in the burn, now, that he hadn't felt even minutes ago. But-

But.

There was choice. There was choice, and understanding. Decision.

"I'll promise anything you require," he managed, voiceless, empty. “Whatever you want of me.”

Quatre sank to his knees. “Thank you,” he whispered. He leaned forward, and embraced Wufei. Wufei dropped his head to Quatre’s shoulder as Quatre rubbed soothing circles on his back. He ached with shame; Quatre's compassion was almost as much a burden as the secret he’d been carrying.

"You're not broken,” Quatre whispered to him. “But you are damaged. We'll work on that together."

But a sweeter burden, perhaps, once he surrendered to its inevitability. It wasn’t quite forgiveness. He would still have to earn that. Quatre would let him.

Everyone was silent by the time Quatre finally released him. Wufei wiped his cheeks, smearing his palm with reddish tears. He stood. Quatre’s hand lingered on his shoulder.

“Give Duo your badge," Quatre said.

They were to it. Duo was the one who looked ravaged, pale skin drawn tight over his clenched jaw. Wufei pulled the chain free of his shirt. It snagged on his collar, so he snapped it tight. He’d worn that badge almost every day for nine years; he knew every scratch and smudge in the stainless steel. He wrapped it in its chain, and held it out.

"Take it," Quatre urged.

Duo still hesitated. Wufei pressed the badge into his palm. Duo nodded, at that, his fingers curling about the metal. He clutched it tightly.

Quatre beckoned Heero. "Take his gun."

Heero was not as reluctant as Duo. He stepped forward, his hand out. Wufei wanted to avoid his eyes, but Heero looked directly at him. Wufei couldn’t read him, didn’t know if that look was disappointment, exoneration. He looked away first. He opened his locker, and took out his gun, holster and all. He kept his eyes on his hands as he passed it to Heero.

Quatre’s hand slipped down to Wufei’s elbow. "I’ve already spoken to Une. We're just going to leave. My car's out front." Wufei nodded. He let Quatre gather his wallet and jacket. Quatre squeezed his arm, and murmured, "You can tell them later. There will be time."

"Right,” Wufei said. He straightened his spine. “Let's go."

They were at the door. Duo darted forward. He caught at Wufei’s sleeve.

Wufei turned. Duo’s neck was warm under his hands. He touched his forehead to Duo’s.

“Come on,” Quatre said.

 

**

 

**02:48 Saturday**  
**12 April 208**

 

He didn’t usually write immediately, unless there were numbers involved. Dates, times, addresses, for accuracy. But he’d been at this for almost ten hours. He tapped the pen on the steering wheel. The new book he’d bought at the convenience store sat on the seat next to him. He’d made one entry, logging Duo’s arrival at his complex at six. He couldn’t think of anything else to add.

He knew Duo was cleaning. It was the kind of thing Duo did, when he was upset. He’d been out of his own place for two months and he’d be in there, scrubbing out all the corners, bisselling his carpets until his arms ached.

He’d seen Quatre leaving with Wufei from Preventers Plaza. Trowa didn’t really have the imagination to think what Quatre planned on doing with the man. For all he knew, Quatre was going to dress Wufei in a French maid’s uniform and parade him around until the humiliation beat the psycho out of him. It was hard to care, particularly. Whatever his reasoning, Wufei had been a coward. But what did that really mean? They were all being cowards. Wufei killed and let Duo take the punishment. Duo wanted Trowa to love him and ran away.

Heero wanted Duo to love him, and settled for just driving him home. They’d sat in Heero’s rice-burner for a damn hour, parked in front of Duo’s apartment, talking. If it had been Trowa, he would at least have tried to make it to the inner sanctum. You only got what you asked for.

Except Trowa wasn’t asking for anything. It was three in the morning, and he was sitting in his car across the street from Duo’s, because he was too damned gutless to go to the door.

He turned on the engine briefly to warm the cab. It was snowing outside, unseasonably, tiny flakes that came and went in gusts. He checked the bag he’d brought from the store. He was out of caffeine, and candy bars. There was half a danish still in the greasy wrapper. He dropped it back with a grimace. He was already jittery, and none of it even touched the nauseating weariness riding underneath.

It was closer to four when the lobby door of the complex opened. It was Duo, tee shirt and jeans, bare-armed to the cold. He came crossing the street straight through the lot to Trowa’s car. It took a moment to register. Trowa put the log down and sat up straight. How was that for coming to grips with opportunity?

Duo halted next to the driver’s side. He tapped the window, and Trowa turned on the engine again to roll it down.

“Here,” Duo said. He passed Trowa a thermos and a plate– toast and oatmeal. "I'm in for the night. Go home, Trowa."

"Invite me up," Trowa said.

"Trowa–"

"Please."

Duo resisted for a moment. Duo would have resisted the Rapture if it came for him. But then he nodded.

That actually surprised him. He didn’t question, though. He turned off the car, struggled out of it on legs that felt suspiciously weak. He locked the door behind him, and followed Duo back into his building.

He’d been right. Duo had cleaned. He hadn’t anticipated the boxes.

"Try not to speculate," Duo said. He leaned on the door.

The books were boxed. The kitchen gear. And Duo hadn’t been washing the windows, he’d been taking down the blinds. The whole place was bare.

"You're going to–“

“Don’t get on me about running away,” Duo pre-empted him. His bare arms were pale even in the gold glow from the overhead light. “I can’t afford this place without a job. That’s all.”

Oh, bullshit. Duo didn't need to give up the apartment in a hurry. He had to have reserves. And even if he didn't, Trowa did. Beautiful. Just fucking perfect.

Everything they’d been through, all the battering at each other, it hadn’t even bought him a day past the verdict.

Duo blinked. "What–“ He crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I’m just–"

"Are you coming home or not?"

"Sit down. Please."

“Because you said things that made me believe you were. No. I don't want to fucking sit down, Duo."

"I said things?" Duo half-shouted at him, and just like that they were back in the middle of the only real argument they’d ever had. “Yeah, I did. I said a lot of things. And it's like talking to a black fucking hole! When's it your turn to say things? When's it your turn to make me believe?"

"That's what I've been trying to do for the last two months, and you don’t want to hear it because ‘I love you’ isn’t in the sentence–"

Duo’s head turned. He stepped closer. "I'm sorry. For calling you out of the blue and landing a murder trial on your lap. For being down on you because I didn't have another punching bag since this started. For needing someone to stand on and demanding you be the one. For always asking for more. I know I do that. I know."

“What do you want me to say? That it's okay with me? I guess it is because I didn't stop it and I didn't rat him out. It's not up to me to tell you how to be. You ask for help when you need it, like this time. If I pushed you, maybe you wouldn't and then you'd be fucked and I'd be–" His thoughts derailed. He didn’t know how to finish his sentence. "–kicking myself in the head."

"You know I hate that about you sometimes." Duo’s eyes were dark. "How you have to think to figure out what I mean to you."

"I know what you mean to me, and so do you."

"No, I know you miss me. I know you like it when I'm around. Beyond that, I don't know. I’m not ungrateful. Just– If I stayed, how long before the urgency is over? A few weeks? A month?"

So, Trowa thought. This is what rock bottom looks like.

"I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to fight for you, huh." He looked away. None of Duo’s windows were broken. It was just an apartment that looked out over a courtyard, over other buildings. He tried to swallow, but his throat was tight. “I've been fighting for you since your arrest,” he said. “I'm tired. I'm going home."

Duo’s shoulders shrank down an inch like he was pulling in. "I wasn't going to disappear. I wouldn't."

“You know what, I’m past hearing it. So you can relax. Your stalker's taking the night off."

“Don’t do this.”

Trowa leaned close. He kissed Duo softly, lips barely parted.

"Seeya," he said, and left.

 

**

 

**09:17 Sunday**  
**14 April 208**

 

"You should transfer to Narcotics," Trowa said.

Heero pretended he’d been typing all along. "Why are you here?" he said.

Trowa sat at the empty desk abutting Heero’s. Wufei’s nameplate was still there, but the drawers were empty when he opened them to look. "You don't know shit about homicide."

Heero wore a small frown when Trowa glanced up. "I've got three commendations that say otherwise."

"You arrested the guy you banged in my kitchen," Trowa said. “So yeah, you don't know shit."

Heero paled, then reddened.

“Did you think he wouldn't tell me?"

It was almost hard to look at Heero. In every memory Trowa had of him, he was so directed, so focussed. Maybe it was unfair to find him so pathetic now. Maybe he was being a jealous bitch about something he couldn’t fix, and Heero was still the same as ever.

Heero’s voice rasped just on the edge of apology, but Trowa didn’t fool himself who the regret was aimed at. “He never did know how to watch his own back," Heero murmured.

Trowa put his elbows on Wufei’s desk. "Do you have his back, Yuy?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Did you talk to Une about getting him reinstated?"

"Yes." Heero entered a line of script, and reached for a binder on the shelf behind him. "And she promptly reminded me she has absolutely no reason to do me any favours."

"Offer her head. She likes that." Heero grimaced, and Trowa relented about an inch. "Or maybe you could remind her that he's a good cop and that you all fucked him over."

"Why are you here?" Heero asked.

"To offer her head." It was his turn to make a face. He leaned back in Wufei’s chair and propped his foot on the desktop. "Or any other damned thing she wants. Jesus, can't you even look at me? You didn't used to be this gutless, Yuy."

Their eyes connected, Heero’s a fierce blue, Trowa’s frigid. "What about you, Trowa?" Heero’s big hands rested in fists. "You think it's an accident that I got Duo in your kitchen?"

"I don't know, Heero. You tell me."

"You've done two good things in your life. The war is a long time over, and Duo did most of this himself."

"Yeah." It took an effort to breathe normally, with the bottom dropping out of his stomach like that. Trowa fixed his gaze on Heero’s bookshelf, reading coded titles on bindings until he was able to relax his spine. "It wasn't always like this,” he said. “Was it?"

Heero eased back slowly. "No," he agreed softly.

"What happened?"

"We grew up. Apart."

He didn’t really want to hate Heero. And he could guess that Heero didn’t want to hate him. They just kind of had, since Trowa had hooked up with Duo. Trowa cleared his throat, and rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

"Yeah,” he said. “I guess I didn't feel... part of it."

"You weren't. You stepped back, and we didn't know how to go after you." Then, "Duo did. Which, I guess, is why we're here."

He laughed at that. "Yeah. Anyway– you're right about Une."

"She's upset about Wufei. She liked him."

"We all like him," Trowa said, changing the tense deliberately. “He’s one of us, in the end.”

Heero inhaled through the nostrils, and nodded.

"How's Duo?" Just a shade awkwardly.

"He's a little adrift." Trowa picked at a hangnail, and let Heero choose the next awkwardly painful subject. "Maybe you could look in on him next week."

“Where are you going to be?"

“Gotta get back to work. Got bills to pay, you know, and make the world unsafe for humanity..."

Heero didn’t make the usual protestations, even with the opening Trowa had left him. Heero’s computer beeped. Heero glanced at it, and answered the message quickly, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Don’t make him chase you,” he said.

"I think you picture him running in the wrong direction," Trowa said. “When Quatre calls, tell him I hope they’re all right.”

 

**

 

**09:32 Sunday**  
**14 April 208**

 

Une’s door was open a crack, the blinds pulled low over the window. That was, in Trowa’s experience, Une’s equivalent of a hearty welcome. Trowa knocked softly, mostly to keep under the curious attention of the agents milling around behind him. He went in without waiting for an invitation.

"Trial's over," he said, and closed the door behind him.

Une, unlike Heero, was actually working on her computer. She paused, her eyes slanting up at him from under the lenses of her glasses.

Then she turned off her screen, and sat back. Her chair creaked. "Yes,” she agreed. “So it is."

"Do you have an assignment for me?"

"Sit down." She turned to her rows of file cabinets as Trowa took one of the wooden chairs facing her desk. Her search took a minute, and he wondered if she were actually unprepared for his visit. That didn’t seem likely, but if she knew what she was looking for, she must have misplaced it.

Finally Une turned, holding a hefty manilla packet. She slid it across her desk to him.

“Saint Petersburg,” she said.

Trowa picked it up and stood. "Cool. I’ll check in with you in a week."

"Trowa."

He carefully did not heave a sigh. "Yeah?"

"You don't have to be perfect every time."

"Wait, is this the part where I get the lecture on how ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good’?"

Une looked annoyed with him. She swept her hair back from her face, and resumed her seat. “I meant,” she said, “that a few mistakes here and there might go a long way toward early retirement."

Okay, that was just surreal. Trowa turned back to fully face her. "Did I say I wanted to retire?"

"No, you didn't."

"Then what's this about?"

"Call it an attempt to be compassionate," she muttered. She turned on her screen again.

Beyond surreal. Even when they’d occasionally slept together, the closest Lady Une ever came to nice was letting him put his shoes on before she kicked him out the door. "Well, save it,” Trowa said, covering his confusion with a little sneer. “I need the job."

He’d succeeded in ridding Une of whatever mysterious urge had prompted her strange offer of advice. She went back to her work, and Trowa nodded, though she was no longer looking at him. "That it?" he prompted.

"I've spoken to an acquaintance,” Une said. “You can let Duo know he can expect a call. Try to stop him from turning it down immediately, out of pride."

There was no end to the revelations here. Trowa hadn’t really expected her to come through with anything, when he’d asked. He wondered what the job was, where it was– and then remembered it wasn’t his place to be worrying about it.

"He's not with me any more,” Trowa replied. “You're going to have to call him. Or get Yuy to do it."

That brought her head up again. "I'm surprised," Une said after a moment. "Rather."

"Yeah, well; shit happens."

"I'm not surprised at him."

"Shocked the shit out of me,” Trowa retorted. “So you might as well get the rest of it off your chest."

"I've never known you to let go of anything."

"Maybe it's time to start." He looked down at the folder he held. He bent a cardboard corner, wiggled it open and shut.

It took a moment. Une laughed. “You foolish man."

He laughed too. He hoped morosely that it sounded as dark as it felt. "That'd be me."

Une opened another drawer. This time she came back immediately, and she was holding his log. His original log, not the new one still in his car. Trowa reached for it before it even hit the desktop, tucking it against his chest.

"You know how to hold on to an investment like this one," she said. "You know when an investment is worth it."

That was the closest they’d ever come to exchanging personal feelings. Trowa knew better than almost anyone else still alive what Une had done for her investment, and where it had left her when that investment had gone and got himself dead on Wufei’s sword. Trowa licked his teeth, and ventured out to where she’d waited to meet him.

"He deserves better,” he said. “And he's ready to move in that direction. Okay? Maybe letting him is the best thing I can do for him."

"Maybe. Or maybe he's finally ready to surrender, and it's time to make the killing blow."

"Why are we having this discussion, Lady?"

"I suspect you haven't any friends left to have it with you,” she said, and if it weren’t completely beyond the pale, Trowa thought that might actually have sounded like sympathy. “I'll have to do in the absence."

 

**

 

**16:57 Sunday**  
**14 April 208**

 

"Well, all right then," Duo said.

Trowa had heard the key in the door. It had taken a lot of effort to stay in the bedroom and just listen while the door opened, while Duo came slowly wandering closer. A lot of effort to keep his head down while Duo came to a halt less than five feet away from where Trowa stood in front of his bureau, tossing clothes into a suitcase.

Trowa made himself cast an entirely casual glance at Duo. "It's just a mission,” he said. “Running's your kink. Not mine."

"Fuck you, you self-righteous prick." Duo said it without heat, but it was a little bitter.

Trowa closed a drawer and left the sleeve of a jumper hanging out. "Don't, please?"

"Where are you going?"

"You know I can't tell you that."

Duo looked away. The shoulders of his coat were visibly damp and there was wet on his hair and face, drops that almost glittered when they caught the light from Trowa’s bedside lamp. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Russia," Trowa said. His throat was dry, and he turned to the closet and the shoe rack. "I'd like to go– I’d like to go believing you'll be here when I come home." His leather trouser boots were in good condition, if a little dull. And his trainers, not the new ones, but the ones he used for jogging. They went into the suitcase. "Lie if you have to. I don't care. I need all my concentration for this and I won't have it if I'm wondering wh–"

Duo interrupted. "My shit's in the car."

The wall he’d been pushing against for months evaporated. Trowa felt– dizzy, blindsided. It was an overwhelming, palpable, visceral flood of relief.

His throat was still tight when he spoke. “C'mere."

"Don't order me around."

"God, you dumbass."

Duo went to the bureau. He opened the top drawer, the sock drawer, and brought a handful to Trowa’s suitcase. He began to fold them. Half over half, the ends tucked in; the way Trowa liked.

Duo’s waist was slender and taut, tense, a little, like he was working to stay still when Trowa embraced him from behind. He rested his chin against Duo’s hair– it was soggy and it smelled like snow– locked his wrists together over Duo’s stomach.

"I don't want it to be just a word standing between us," he whispered.

"Maybe it always will," Duo answered quietly. "Maybe we can live with that."

"Maybe we won't have to."

Duo’s heart was beating hard enough to feel through his back, but he didn’t turn. “I can live with it, Trowa."

"Could you look at me, please?"

Duo didn’t steel himself. He wouldn’t have to, Trowa knew. He’d walked in with his back up. His eyes gave nothing away.

"Don't go. I'll figure out a way to make you believe it's worth your– sacrifice."

Duo stopped him with a kiss. "I'll be here," he said gently, his lips brushing over Trowa’s.

He kissed Duo hard. Then softly, because hard didn’t feel quite right. "So... okay."

"Yeah."

Duo’s hair never dried quickly. It hung in a tangled fringe over his face. Trowa brushed it aside, and pressed their cheeks together. Duo’s hand smoothed down over his chest, and fell away. "You got time for dinner before you leave?" he asked.

"Not leaving til tomorrow morning."

"That's good."

"You okay?"

"I will be." Duo smiled. It was tired, and a little sore, maybe, but Trowa knew it for one of the real ones. "Come on,” he added. “I'll cook one of your favourites. We can sleep early."

He followed Duo to the kitchen. It had got dark while he was packing; the window over the sink showed only black behind the panes. Duo shed his coat onto one of the chairs, and rolled up his sleeves. He was wearing a blue button-down. It looked incongruous, at first, because it was so weirdly normal. It made him look younger. It made him look like– just a guy in a kitchen, but Duo, also.

"Hey," Trowa said.

"Yeah?" Duo pulled a pot from the cupboard and set it in the sink under the faucet.

"I do, you know."

Duo’s back happened to be to him. He was sure it was just the timing, not intention, but Duo went still for a moment. Then, slowly, he resumed his walk to the fridge.

"Just so we're clear on that," Trowa said.

It took Duo a long time to answer. "Yeah," he replied huskily. "Okay."

"Yeah." Trowa exhaled, and went back to their bedroom to finish packing.


End file.
